The Second Splinter
by SwiftKick
Summary: As she fights against the Death Eaters occupying Hogwarts during her sixth year, Ginny makes an unlikely ally. Unlikely because he might not be real, and also because he probably wants her dead too. [substantial canon divergence]
1. Fear in Fours

**Author's Note:** I have always wanted more adventure and challenges for some of the more minor HP characters. :)

Expect violence, pain, manipulation, humor, and a little weirdness.

Please consider reviewing!

o o o

 _muscle to muscle and toe to toe_

o o o

Ginny Weasley sat in the Headmaster's office and pulled at a loose thread on the sleeve of her Holyhead Harpies themed pyjamas.

She had woken up in one of the seats positioned in front of Dumbledore's desk about ten minutes ago, not quite sure how she'd gotten there. Of course, she was certain that similar incidents like this had been happening all year. There would be times she'd remember being in the Gryffindor common room, and then the next thing she knew she was waiting for breakfast in the Great Hall. No recollection of the twelve hours in between. But even trying to think about those lapses of memory was difficult for her. It was like trying to find a missing page in a book. Several pages.

The door to the office opened. Ginny craned around in the deep leather seat to see Professor Dumbledore entering. He smiled at her, eyes catching the room's firelight in a pleasant manner. "Hello, Miss Weasley."

"Professor! You're back," Ginny exclaimed. And becoming sheepish, then added, "I'm sorry for being in your office."

She didn't remember getting there.

Dumbledore was not at all surprised at her presence as he walked across the room. "Think nothing of it, Miss Weasley. But yes, as you say, I have returned to Hogwarts. It seems that my services were once again needed. Now, how are you?"

"I'm alright," she said. It was a simple answer. The standard answer. Her fingers found the loose thread again and she resumed pulling at it. Mumbling as an afterthought, "Ginny's fine, Professor."

"Ah," Dumbledore might have smiled. She thought she heard it in his voice but when she looked up again he was thoughtful. He said, "tonight has been very turbulent for the school."

He reached his desk and stood there, one of his hands tracing the edges of some of the interesting things littering its surface. Ginny had been watching them earlier. Silvery and odd, some bobbing and others spinning. She didn't know what any of the things did. At his touch, one cooed like an owl.

"Sir?" she asked, not following.

Dumbledore stopped behind his desk and picked up something that had caught his attention. It was circular and luminescent. It looked metallic and solid, but between his fingers its form was fluid and malleable. He continued walking until he had circled to the front of the table again. Dumbledore sank into the seat next to Ginny's. Wordlessly, he offered the metallic, rubbery thing to her. Ginny accepted it, surprised that it was warm. Not unpleasantly so, but in a comforting way. She pulled at it, stretching it into different shapes.

"This year has been a particularly trying one," he announced. After a beat, he amended, "I suppose, so was the last."

"Because of the Chamber, you mean?" Ginny asked. The Chamber of Secrets was all anyone had talked about throughout the year. She remembered that.

"What do you think of it?" Professor Dumbledore tilted his head, watching her carefully behind his spectacles.

Ginny tugged at the silver thing.

"It's scary. I guess," she said. "There's a monster inside, isn't there? Charlie would like that."

Dumbledore nodded and she definitely caught the quirk of his smile at the mention of her brother. "There was a monster inside the Chamber until tonight. Harry Potter, with the kind of luck that seems overly fond of the boy," –he meant the bad kind– "encountered it tonight. But, he was able to defeat it. With some help from your brother, Ronald."

This was not what she expected to hear. " _Ron_ defeated the monster?" Harry she could believe. Ron was… "my brother, Ron?"

The Headmaster was smiling again. "The same."

"And they were in the Chamber of Secrets? Boy, is Mum ever gonna be thrilled to hear about that." Ginny sighed and sank deeper into her seat. Ron was getting into some fun adventures ever since meeting Harry. It used to be she was the one that got them into trouble.

Feeling a bit glum, she asked, "what was the monster?"

At the question, Professor Dumbledore furtively looked her over very closely. He said, "a Basilisk."

"Oh." All the word conjured was an image something like a snake. She didn't know so much about Basilisks. "And they're both alright?"

"Yes. And Madame Pomfrey has also been able to revive the other students."

"They were petrified," she said. Ginny vaguely remembered having learned that was the effect when meeting the gaze of a Basilisk indirectly. If a person saw them straight on, then they died. Just like that.

"Any other questions?"

Not related to the monster, Ginny thought. Her hands had stilled around the silver thing. She was watching the office ceiling instead. Someone had charmed it to look like stars. Not the night sky she knew, but stars from somewhere else. "Why am I in your office?"

Dumbledore spoke like he had known this question was coming. It made sense to her, he knew lots of things. "You have been sleepwalking this year. And I regret to say we did not notice sooner."

"I was sleepwalking tonight? …While Ron and Harry were fighting a monster, I was sleepwalking."

"Life is sometimes like that." Dumbledore withdrew a small vial from his sleeve. Or perhaps he summoned it. He handed it to Ginny. "This is a cure."

Ginny looked from the vial to Dumbledore's face. "Will that be enough? I think I've been sleepwalking a lot this year."

The Headmaster considered the vial. "I will make sure it is enough."

"I won't lose track of myself any more?"

"No Ginny, You will not lose track of yourself any more," he promised.

Ginny took the vial. It smelled a little like sugar water.

"Did I sleepwalk right into your office?"

"No. I thought it best you waited here until your parents arrived –with all that has happened tonight. Would you like to see them?"

"I can see them?" She said, perking up. Arthur and Molly Weasley were in the room a second later, having been waiting just outside the door. Ginny grinned at them, "Mum! Dad!"

They each had red eyes and faces and her mother's cheeks were shiny and wet. For some reason, Ginny was overwhelmed by the sight of them. She felt like – for some reason she thought she had felt like she would never see her parents again. They each had smiles for her but waited for a nod from the Headmaster before they approached her and collectively pulled her into a tight embrace.

"First our Ginny, then Ron," Molly was saying, throat rough with emotion, "you had no idea how worried we were."

"I'm fine, Mum," Ginny said, the words slightly muffled in the hug. "Really. Just some sleepwalking business. I'll be fine soon, really. Got the cure right here."

She watched her father glance at her Headmaster. "What a relief."

They said something more than just their words, Ginny was sure, she just didn't know what. It seemed serious. She raised her eyebrows, suspicious. "Is everything else okay?"

Dumbledore was the one to speak. "There's a feast down in the Great Hall, would you like to go?"

"Isn't it the middle of the night?" It felt like it was, at least.

"Early morning, but a pyjama soiree, you might have it." He reassured her with another smile.

Everyone was smiling at her. Watching, too.

"Sure," Ginny said. Her parents agreed to go with Dumbledore to see Ron and Harry in the hospital wing. Ginny at the last second returned the silver thing to its proper place. Her hands were restless with nothing to hold onto, and so she went back to pulling at threads. Outside the office, Professor McGonagall waited in the corridor for Ginny.

Before he walked away, Professor Dumbledore called her by her full name.

"Yes?" she said.

"Your cure?"

"Oh, right." She had slipped it into a pocket, distracted by her parents' arrival. In one go, she drained the vial. It tasted like sugar water, too. "Thank you, Professor."

"Have a good time at the feast. Your brother will be along shortly."

Ginny smiled this time. Her muscles felt tight in this position, though the sentiment seemed sincere enough.

"Thank you," she repeated, and followed her head of house to the Great Hall.

But even that night Ginny didn't quite fully remember. Not for several years.

o o o

Chapter One

 _Fear in Fours_

o o o

The wind at platform Nine and Three Quarters was particularly brutal that day. Ginny's hair whipped across her face with a gleeful vengeance, tangling itself with her eyelashes and catching on the dryness of her lips. It was a dull and grey morning, weather and atmosphere in agreement. There was a static feeling in the air – as it was sometimes before a storm.

For the first time in all her trips to Kings Cross, her father was Ginny's only accompanying family that day. He stood a few paces away, expression distant, his gaze switching between ends of the platform, sometimes landing on questionable people. His clothes were more dishevelled than usual, and his hair was noticeably lighter and thinner than it used to be.

There was also an Order escort with them. Ginny recognised her as one of Charlie's old classmates. She had changed her hair since her time at Hogwarts, a short bob cut that complemented the curves of her face. As Ginny looked at her, the woman noticed and gave a small wink. Much like Tonks would have done.

Which unsettled Ginny in an odd way. She hadn't seen the other Auror since the wedding almost a month ago.

"Where is Tonks, Dad?" She asked, voice a bit rough from disuse.

Her father started at Ginny's question and turned to give her a blank stare. "What do you mean, Gin? She's…well, she's taken time off from work, hasn't she?"

"Why's that?"

The somewhat vacant stare gained an incredulous tinge, as if her father couldn't understand what she was getting at.

"Because of the baby," the other Order member said quietly, picking up on Ginny's ignorance.

"Baby," Ginny repeated dully, not immediately connecting the obvious. And then, "s _hit_ –baby?"

Tonks was having a child. With the war gaining momentum, Ginny had learned to suppress her excitement and so her confusion dwindled to a weary sense of disappointment. Feeling lame, she murmured, "I didn't… I should have congratulated her, then."

"I could have sworn Molly mentioned it," Ginny heard her father say to himself. But at this point her parents were so concerned with not telling Ginny anything about the war that they were forgetting to tell her anything at all. As preoccupied as they were with her well being, and she knew that they were, her mother and father were increasingly withdrawn from their daughter.

Ginny didn't mind — as the twins would have agreed – less attention meant more freedom. While she was only sixteen and still a student, Ginny had plenty of ideas to help the Order. She, Luna, and Neville had already covertly discussed their plans to continue Dumbledore's Army at Hogwarts. Just because Harry had his own missions to attend to, that did not mean everyone else was suddenly inept.

A magically modified ' _Ah-HEM_ ' interrupted Ginny's thoughts and she went on tiptoes to peek above the thickening crowd to locate the origin of the offending, and creepily familiar noise.

"Oh no," she and her father groaned simultaneously.

Teetering on a stool, in the exact likeness of a squat, pink toad, was Dolores Umbridge. In her falsely saccharine voice, she started to speak. "According to a Ministry decree, all students are to form a queue and provide identification before boarding the express."

Ginny was scowling and preparing to storm up to Umbridge when a heavy weight gripped her shoulder, halting her. It was her father; and with a grim expression, he steered his child towards the forming line.

"To think they are going this far," he said. "The raids are bad enough for the adults, but now the students as well?"

Ginny had a vague idea of the raids to which he was referencing. She wondered how the Ministry of Magic planned to handle the children, but needn't have bothered, for the answer was apparent soon enough. As her trio got closer to the train, she could her Umbridge's grating voice admonishing different students. "Begley, was it? And your father's background? …I see." — then, as an aside to someone else— "this one too."

To the line, Umbridge called, "next!"

"No, she isn't..." Arthur Weasley looked even paler than before. Ginny was certain it was from rage, as all the blood had gathered where he gripped his hat fiercely. "She's taking down their information! What does she plan to do with it at the school? Blood quarantine?"

The plan was essentially that, it turned out.

When Ginny approached the toad, Umbridge actually scoffed at the apparent conundrum she presented.

"Weasley," Umbridge breathed with all the joy one might have for excrement on the sole of a shoe. "While your family might be curious in its affiliations, there's no questioning your background."

"You would find having brains to be curious," chirped Ginny with a sweet smile of her own, causing her father to moan faintly in exasperation.

Umbridge reddened at this remark and glared down from her stool. "You should take care with your time at school, my dear little child. It would be a real shame for you not to reconsider certain affairs and affiliations while you're there."

The toad said this in her typical sugary tone, but the threat was all too clear to anyone within earshot.

"A real shame," Ginny remarked without any hint of sincerity.

"You will be up in front, Miss Ginevra," Umbridge said. Her bulging eyes narrowed into slits from the wide, stiff grin her face wore.

"Weasley is fine," Ginny corrected immediately, "and I'm capable of seating myself."

"Oh no, no, no. That won't do. Under Ministry orders, the school has decided to encourage students to interact with specially pre-determined groups that will inspire cohesive bonds to further the achievement capabilities of each child. You understand, don't you?"

There was no more room for argument, though her father attempted to protest. Ginny was forced into giving him a quick embrace and goodbye lest she was kept from boarding altogether.

"I'll write!" she promised before being directed further into the cars.

"You'd better not!" her father warned, clearly overcome with apprehension. Ginny felt the desperate smile she had conjured for his sake disappear just as she was pushed out of his sight.

A man who was almost familiar to her was in charge of leading Ginny to her approved car. He was tall and lean, and fairly young. His manner was very restrained. He snapped at her when she waved to Neville, grouching at her "brainless dawdling," and hushed her silent when she tried to deny his order for her to change into her robes so early on the trip. The train had yet to even leave the station.

"You're not to wear anything other than Ministry approved clothing when outside of your dormitory," was the official mandate he gave her. He stuck his hand out, offering a shrunken parcel of what she guessed were the new uniforms. "Now change and get into your group."

The man left her and turned down the car to bark at a group of bewildered Ravenclaws.

Ginny kept her expression carefully blank as she considered her required attire. Around her, other students had already changed into the new robes. There wasn't much of a distinction from the old Hogwarts' uniform, other than lining and trims that matched house colours. Absently, she ran her hand down the solid red thread outlining the close of her robe.

"You've got to be joking me. _Weasley?_ "

Ginny, who had found her compartment some time later, looked up from her seat to see the person who had just joined her. Her stomach fell at Pansy Parkinson's pug-nosed face gaping at her from the door. Like most everyone, she was paler and thinner than Ginny remembered, but the older girl still had the same permanently cross expression framed by the warm blond locks for which she was known.

"Which one? The girl?" A male voice asked. Ginny knew immediately it belonged to Blaise Zabini, even before he nudged his friend into the small compartment. The boy was mostly much the same as he had been at all the Slug Club meetings she had been obliged to attend; coolly stylish and effortlessly arrogant.

"The pleasure is yours," Ginny said in a bored voice before turning to the window to wait for the train to depart from the station. No familiar people remained. She hid her frown, both at her father's hasty retreat and her apparent 'group members.' These two were Slytherins and likely connected to Death Eaters, but they were more an annoyance than any threat. The one time Ron had been right about Malfoy's mastermind scheming, none of the other Slytherins had even been involved.

"How is our fine Potter, little Weasley?" Pansy had situated herself on the seat opposite, and was currently training a curl around her wand. She smiled sweetly as Ginny regarded her. "Unfortunately not dead yet, we can assume. You're still coming to school even though he, evidently, is not."

Despite her lack of physical intimidation, Ginny still had to be careful about any information that could be gleaned from her reaction to Pansy's taunts. Luckily, the long summer had already dulled Ginny's infamous Weasley reactions.

"Harry dumped me," she said flatly, unleashing all the shallow teenage girl she could. "Why should it bother me what he's been up to?"

Pansy's sneer fell for an instant, an unidentifiable reaction flickering over her features.

Blaise was quick to fill the silence. He leaned forward in his seat, smoothing a crisp white sleeve cuff with a casual air, and took a long moment to find her eyes.

"Feeling bitter at all?" he asked, channelling his mother's charm.

"Only from present company."

"You should think about your position, Ginny. It appears your pack has sent you off on your own. You wouldn't want to spend your time at school feeling lonely." A set of perfect teeth flashed from behind a well practised, enticing smile. "Or hurting."

So this was the Ministry's plan: surround subversive people, like herself, with crafty Slytherins. For them to get information out of her, watch her movements, and potentially sway her allegiance. She refused to acknowledge Blaise's warning, and instead noted his continued attention to his sleeve.

"Something the matter with your forearm, Zabini? Got an itch?"

Had he been branded with the Dark Mark?

His hazel eyes found a spot of the floor. "Like I would mar my skin with such –"

"Blaise," Pansy snapped, finding her voice suddenly.

Ginny couldn't help her eyebrows as they inched upward, surprised. As careful as Zabinis were with vows, Ginny wondered what it meant that Blaise had neglected this one in particular.

Pansy recovered, glancing carefully at Ginny, "your tie is crooked."

"That's not the only thing that's crooked," Ginny supplied, earning a huff from the other girl.

Pansy gave her a flat stare. "Your humour is one toned and exhausting, Weasley. At least try harder."

Ginny would have laughed had it been an observation belonging to anyone else. Instead she felt a touch indignant and a little reprimanded and there was a smart urge to stick her tongue out. She changed the subject. "How many people in these groups, anyhow?"

"Four, maybe five," Zabini shifted a shoulder as a dignified sort of shrug. It was an answer they would all know soon enough, so he must have thought it harmless to respond.

"That'd be nearly a hundred groups." She wondered over the actual usefulness of so many cells.

"Not quite." The compartment door was blocked again. It had been left open and Ginny hadn't paid much mind to the occasional person passing it. Currently, Zacharias Smith was leaning on its frame. His robe was trimmed in an undisturbed line of bronze, but Ginny had never known a person with less Hufflepuff qualities. Pansy and Ginny shared a disappointed groan at Zacharias' arrival (" _uuugh_ " and a skywards," _you're the worst!_ "), only to then glare at one another, each offended by the sudden commonality.

"Oh bugger off you lot," Zacharias grouched as he dropped onto the cushion next to Ginny. His nose lifted into the air as he looked over Blaise, probably imagining some sort of male competition in the equally posh boy.

"As I was saying," he continued, "I counted just about fifty or so groups. Half the school has opted out of returning this term."

"You can't be serious," Ginny demanded, although she was the only one. The Slytherins looked unsurprised. Even a little triumphant on Pansy's behalf.

"And there're few new Hogwarts Professors, as well. Apparently there's a new D.A. Professor."

Ginny shook her head. "You mean D.A.D.A.?"

"No, D.A." Zacharias actually gave a somewhat significant look to Ginny while reiterating this. Like Dumbledore's Army, she wondered. He clarified without her having to ask. "As in the Dark Arts."

"Well, that will be entertaining at the very least," Zabini offered with a snide upturn of his lips.

"Oh please," Ginny said, waving a hand. "It's a school. It's not like they can teach anything serious. They'll probably talk about hiccuping jinxes or something."

The conversation naturally dissolved into bickering from that point on, with Ginny arguing with everyone, including Zacharias. She figured, as blood traitors, she and Smith had been placed in the same group with the knowledge they didn't get on well. No support between them to form a bond against Blaise and Pansy.

"Like house points will matter! We're in a war!"

"Oh thank the skies above," Pansy said, interrupting Ginny's row with Zacharias. She hopped to her feet, foregoing suavity. "I never thought I'd be so glad to see the castle."

"Indeed. I thought I'd hex my head clear off if I had to listen to this nonsense any more." Blaise looked from Zacharias to Ginny like they were toddlers with a toy torn between them. He smirked. "Besides, with a Slytherin headmaster, there's no question as to who will win the cup."

"You're all mad!" Ginny brought a hand to her brow in frustration, ignoring her company. "This is pointless. When will you open your eyes?"

Pansy minimised her trunk with a flick of her wand and then rested her hands on her hips, giving Ginny a tight look. "When will _you_ open your eyes, Weasley? You're an ignorant, aesthetically displeasing, _poor_ blood traitor, but you're still a pureblood. Pick the right side and maybe your precious school year will be easier. You're just making this harder for yourself."

Without another word, but with one more loathsome look, Pansy left the compartment, beckoning Zabini to follow.

Ginny had the urge to pull out her own hair in frustration. "Is that really what it's like for them? Just thinking about their own good and burying their head in the mud when everything around them is falling apart?"

"What's wrong with looking out for yourself a little?" Zacharias asked honestly.

Ginny shoved him back into his seat as he tried to stand and left as well.

Once off the train, she tried to navigate through the nervous mass of people, looking hopefully for Neville or Luna. She couldn't make out anyone clearly in the evening haze. Without Hagrid's recognisable presence there to herd away firsties, it was difficult to orient herself at all. In his place, Ginny did notice, was a plump little witch —perhaps one of Umbridge's toad spores— croaking angrily over the students.

Ginny was staring incredulously at the awful, vaguely familiar round woman when someone grabbed at her arm. Instinctively, she broke their grip with a twist of their thumb and reached for her wand.

"Seamus!" she said, halting her movements.

"Ow, _ow_ , thumb back, please..." With his sandy haired locks trimmed short and his face free of his typical grin, the seventh year boy didn't look himself at all.

"Oh, sorry!" Ginny quickly relented her grip.

In the time she had spent in his company, typically alongside Dean, she'd never seen Seamus so trim, lean and serious. But then, she realised belatedly, it was precisely that Dean was not around that Seamus was tense. Her stomach tied itself into a sour knot.

"No, I'm sorry. I tried calling your name, but the crowd, you know?" Seamus said. "Carriage?"

Ginny nodded vigorously and followed Seamus as he threaded his way between students. It occurred to her that there really was a discernible difference in the amount who had arrived for school this autumn as opposed to last. She couldn't believe how many people she knew wouldn't be back at all.

She wondered where Harry was at the moment.

Inside the carriage, both students were very aware of the possibility their conversation was not private. Even though it seemed they were alone for the ride, there was a strong sense of being watched. Avoiding Harry and other friends altogether as a topic, they talked about classes and whether or not they would have Hogsmeade outings.

"Who do you think the Prefects are this year?" Ginny asked just as the short trip ended. Seamus exited before her, holding out a hand to help her down from the carriage. Ron and Hermione were the seventh year Prefects, but were obviously both gone. She wondered if the Prefects from her year were among the missing half of the student populus.

"Beats me," Seamus answered. "If Umbridge had any say in it, all the Prefects are probably those Inquisitorial Squad prats."

Ginny snorted, but thought it wasn't actually too ridiculous a suggestion. "McGonagall would never allow that."

"As if it were up to her." Pansy and Blaise were standing outside the entrance doors, and had apparently heard the question.

"Lay off, Parkinson" Seamus warned, positioning himself between the two girls, sensing the hostility.

Pansy flashed a pretty smile instead. "You do know, Weasley, McGonagall didn't take over for Dumbledore."

Her cryptic message for Ginny was lost in the quick rush as the castle doors opened and students pushed inside. But they didn't stray far apart, because there was an immediate announcement for their assigned groups to meet again before the Great Hall would be opened. Both girls shared a contempt look with the other and stayed their feet almost defiantly.

Ginny let her eyes wonder over the castle interior to keep them from accidentally meeting the gaze of any of her company. She considered the tapestry of the Founders for a long moment, thought of the so-called virtues each had hoped to find in their houses, before switching her attention to the students once more.

"How is it all of the groups have at least two Slytherins?" Ginny asked aloud.

To her left, Zacharias spun around and a second later exclaimed she was right.

Pansy rolled her eyes. "Tell me again why you weren't sorted into Ravenclaw, Weasley."

"What does that mean?" Ginny immediately shot back.

Blaise answered, speaking aloud as he made the realisation. "There are more Slytherins because none of the muggleborn students have come back."

Zacharias turned once more and Ginny this time joined him as they each tried to place familiar faces. Her chest tightened uncomfortably. She said very quietly, "I hadn't noticed."

"And you're supposed to be their ally?" Pansy sneered. She flipped a lock of curled hair over her shoulder and physically turned from the circle they reluctantly formed.

"There are other students gone, too," said Zacharias. "Wayne's not here, either. His mother used to work under Scrimgeour, before…"

Before certain parties had infiltrated and taken over the ministry and Hogwarts, Ginny finished mentally. Aloud she said only, "yeah."

"A Weasley brat, what a non-surprise," said a raspy voice. Pansy visibly started at its sound. Ginny turned to identify the speaker. It was a man. He had a head of balding grey hair above shoulders that curled inwards. But it was his deeply set, beady eyes and slanted mouth that Ginny recognised. Just a few months ago he had been trying to curse her into oblivion.

"What are you doing here," she almost spat at Amycus Carrow.

"Ah-ah-aah," he tutted, very happily and in an unappealing fashion. "It's _Professor_ Carrow."

"Why aren't we allowed into the Great Hall yet?" Zacharias asked, either ignoring or unaware of the anger Ginny was very thinly containing. Her fists curled so tightly that her arms began to shake all the way up to her shoulders.

Amycus didn't acknowledge the question.

"Mr. Zabini," he said, greeting Blaise. Blaise nodded his head and offered nothing else. Carrow stopped his eyes on Pansy next. What he might have thought to be a charming smile pulled at his lips. It turned Ginny's stomach. "Miss Parkinson, lovely to see you. As always."

The expression the man wore appeared to turn Pansy's stomach as well. Her eyes closed and she exhaled a long breath through her nose.

"Are you teaching here now, Mr. Carrow?" Pansy queried. It sounded polite enough, but her she seemed to have trouble looking at the man.

"He is," answered someone else. Ginny had a split second to think, wryly, that their little circle was gaining quite an audience.

And then she noticed Professor Snape had been the one to speak.

A second later and her wand was in her hands, pointed squarely at Snape's chest. She forgot about Carrow. Forgot about Pansy and Blaise. Forgot about loud-mouthed Zacharias Smith. All she remembered was that this man in the sight of her wand was the one who killed Professor Dumbledore. She remembered this and nothing else.

Snape was unaffected.

"Can't decide on a spell, Miss Weasley?" His drawl was as curt and somewhat disinterested as ever.

Ginny fumed. Unfortunately, he was right. She didn't know where to start. Which jinx? Which hex? What kind of punishment would be appropriate for this murderer? She didn't know. She just reacted, understanding, at the very least, she should always have her wand between herself and this traitor.

A muttered Expelliarmus and another second later, Snape was snatching her wand from the air.

"Brandishing your wand with intent to strike your Headmaster? Twenty points from Gryffindor," Snape admonished, a satisfied twist lifting his lips. "You're lucky I'm being generous on our first day back, Miss Weasley."

"What – ?" was all she managed, looking from her empty fingers to Snape's ugly face, and back to her fingers. Anger, fear, confusion. The long tamed Weasley temper made a tentative effort for return. She flung her arm out, pointing it again at Snape. Directly aimed on his heart. "You killed him."

She wanted to yell. She wanted every student in the over-crowded entrance hall to shut up and pay attention. This man killed Dumbledore, and _she wanted them to know_. But no one outside of an arm's reach was paying any attention. Even Blaise and Pansy seemed only mildly aware of the interaction. Pansy, in fact, had started shaping her fingernails with a transfigured lock of hair, almost as if trying to will herself very far away. Ginny swallowed, noticing her throat had gone dry.

Was she losing her mind? Was Ginny Weasley the only person in this room who knew what Snape had done?

How was he _here_?

"I'll tell," she said to Snape, something ugly in the pit of her stomach. She was barely conscious of herself beyond the buzzing between her ears. "I'll tell them where you are."

She would tell her parents. She would tell the Order. She would tell Harry. And they would come and squish Snape proper like the bug he was.

Snape's expression didn't change. He stepped forward and quickly closed the gap that had been safely separating them. Ginny tried not to lean away as she craned her chin up to meet the man's eyes as he loomed over her like a dark tower.

As a professor Snape had never scared her. In this moment she was terrified. Her eyes watered as she refused to look away.

"Oh yes, I'm sure you will tell them." He was hissing the words. "I've no doubt your lips are as loose as your legs. Go _moan_ to your precious Potter. I'll be happy to meet him when he stumbles in, charging like a fool."

Ginny blinked back tears. It wasn't just water, she admitted to herself.

Professor Snape reached for her hand, his touch that of a corpse to the hot blood in her veins, and he pressed her wand back into her palm. "It's a good thing, Miss Weasley, you've returned to school. Perhaps you can learn what to do with this."

Stepping away and addressing Zacharias, Snape said, "the staff is finishing arrangements in the Great Hall, Mr. Smith. Now close your mouth already, you look like you're waiting for something to take roost in that obnoxious cave."

With a dramatic swish of robes, Snape walked away. Amycus Carrow slunk after him. Ginny didn't move. She willed her legs to stop trembling and her eyes to dry.

Wanted Killer Severus Snape was the Headmaster of Hogwarts. A known Death Eater, and someone who had tried to cast an _Unforgivable_ on her, was now a professor at her school. She was stuck in the company of three people she very much disliked and felt the isolation of being an island in a vast sea. An ominous setting for the coming year, Ginny thought, and there was no comfort in the walls of her school.

"…I'm not the only one who heard Snape call her a slut, right?" Zacharias chimed in, as ever helpful.

Ginny wiped at her face and cast a bat-bogey hex at him. She earned another negative five points for her house.

o o o


	2. Thistles Thistles Thorns

o o o

 _from medic from colleague, friend, enemy, foe_

o o o

Ginny and Ron sat along the edge of the square's single fountain, Ron forlornly watching as the twins dogged after Charlie to some school related store.

"Why can't we go with them?" He asked, but both he and Ginny knew it was because 'they were too young!' to leave their mother's sight.

"'We get to sit here," Ginny said. "That's something."

It was the yearly trip to Diagon Alley before the start of school and this fall the twins were going to start at Hogwarts. It was a Big Deal for the family; everyone was excited and high energy save for the youngest two.

"Without Fred and George, we've lost our advantage against Mum and Dad in numbers," Ron said as they lost sight of their brothers in the crowd. He was annoyed. "We're never going to win arguments with just the two of us kids. We'll be stuck sitting at fountains the whole year."

He had a point.

She didn't feel discouraged. "Just means we got to be more clever."

Ginny pulled at the front pocket of her smock, an artistic bit of patchwork that her mother had fashioned in the shape of a lion, and looked into the shadowy space that had been charmed to hold more than appearances would allow. She pulled out first the sandwich given to her for lunch and then rummaged around for the basket she had stored earlier in the morning.

Ron eyed her sandwich, more interested in the food than her other pursuit.

"Can I –?"

"Yeah," she answered, correctly guessing his intention as he grinned and swiped up the home prepared meal. He'd probably eaten his own right after emerging from the floo.

"What are you doing? Lose something down there?"

Taking a moment more, Ginny finally found all she was looking for and retrieved the basket from her pocket. Holding it up for him to see, she announced, "this!"

Ron gave the mushrooms she had collected a critical look. Not really understanding her grand vision, which didn't shock her, he drawled out, "...ooh-K..?"

"This is why the twins exclude you, Ronald," she teased. "You don't think like a Money-Raker."

She left him there eating her lunch and set to work determining a potential target. Male, probably. Men were easier to trick according to the twins. Younger, too. Ginny wrinkled her nose as she looked over the different wizards walking through and loitering in the square. A whisper of a man wouldn't be any good, and that one over there was too cocky, that one was in the middle of a disagreement with his companion. She finally settled on a group of three men who were adults, but not like the Grandpa Weasley sort of age. Not quite her parents ages... Younger than that but older than herself.

"Hey mister," she said, planting herself next to one of the men. "Mister, I think you need some of these."

The man turned from his friends to blink down at her. Frowning, "get lost, brat."

"No, I think you should use these, mister," Ginny insisted right back, returning his expression with a frown of her own. A frown of concern, of course.

"Scram already."

 _Ignore and proceed_ , she decided.

"You see that man over there?" She asked, pointing over her shoulder to where Arthur Weasley stood, deep in a conversation about something important with her mother and Percy and Bill. "That guy has seven kids! Seven. You think that happened all on its own? No way. He eats a little bit of these every day and that's how that guy has seven kids, I'm telling you."

"Is she hocking mushrooms? Really?" One of the adults asked the other.

"That's Bill Weasley, isn't it?"

"She looks like a Weasley."

"You Bill's sister?"

"She's probably an Auror or something. What do they call it? Like she's trying to pretend to push mushrooms and then she'll arrest us or something."

Ginny realised the three weren't adults but rather students. Which was probably better for her.

"I'm trying to help you guys out, innit. _Seven_ kids. You get what I'm saying?"

"Your family doesn't know about contraceptives?" The smallest of the three pointed out while another said, "these some sort of Get-Laid shrooms?"

"She does live in a forest or something. You know, out there in the middle of nowhere?"

"Bill says it's a farm or something."

Ginny nodded her head at the boy who had lost some of his sneering to contemplate her basket a little more closely. "Live close to _the woods,_ you know? Pureblood birthright and all that."

Fred always said a little bit of insinuating always helped a small seed grow. Or something like that.

"You're not an Auror, right?"

Ginny rolled her eyes and kicked a leg up so that she could pull at the tip of her boot where Percy's Sticking Spell had worn off and her stockinged toes peeked out from the loose sole. "Sure, I'm a big scary Auror and I'm going to wear boots that don't even close. You want some help or not?"

One of the three picked up a mushroom. "These make you see stuff?"

She didn't think on it and lied smoothly, "'course. Gotta dry them out first though and only use 'em on a new moon."

"You really going to take her stupid bits of tree rot, Mills?"

"They're free, right?" The one identified as Mills asked, smirking down at Ginny.

"Five sickles a piece."

"What a load!"

"Ten sickles," Ginny said, snatching back the mushroom. "And mind the product ...hands like a troll."

"You think this is Bill's secret on the pitch?" The boy who was neither small nor Mills asked the other two. "I swear he stepped up his game last year..."

"That's the game you're gonna focus on?"

"He went out with Zera Rhoss for two months and dumped _her_ for _Althea Amber_."

"Shit, I'd forgotten about Althea..."

"More like you mentally blocked that fun fact."

Ginny kept her face blank as the three seemed to all come to a conclusion together, but internally she pumped her arms in the air.

"You said five sickles per, wasn't it, Weasley?"

After that trip to Diagon Alley, she and Ron had a stash of candy for the next two weeks.

o o o

Chapter Two

Thistles, Thistles, Thorns

o o o

The Welcoming Feast was hollow of cheer and the sorting ceremony a stiff affair. Ginny had spent most of the evening making a mental note of every person who had and who had not returned to school.

Five of the twelve girls in her year had not come back and it was almost the sole topic of conversation as people made their way to the tower for the first time that year.

"I'm going to write Harry tonight," Ginny assured Neville as she darted up to her room to get a quill and ink to start the letter.

She came to a sharp halt when she saw the beds, or rather what sat at their ends. Along with the other girls in the room, Ginny found her trunk waiting for her with its lock undone. Opening it, she found a slip of parchment paper inside stamp-signed by the Ministry's Department Head for Educational Welfare and Security. Reading the notice, it stated several of her items had been seized for further examination after they were found during a "randomised" sweep of her possessions.

"Bloody..." she whispered.

"They must have done this during the feast..." said one of the other girls in a similar position. "They took my home-stock Potions ingredients."

"They took my novels..."

"Who the hell is this guy Ruddgrim?"

"How 'bout what the hell is the Department for Educational Welfare and Security and all that shite?"

"I've never heard of it."

"It's new," Ginny determined. She dropped the list of her "confiscated" things, dully accepting she might never see them again. "It's how they can manage us more efficiently. Like how they've got us split up into these 'diversity' groups."

"When did we even have any Ministry officials here? Were they in the castle?"

"Maybe they're leaving now?"

Ginny was the first to a window facing south, towards Hogsmeade, to check. She was soon crammed between the others as they each tried for a look as well.

"Might have left by floo," someone said after a moment of checking the grounds.

"Sodding...they took my floo powder, you know?"

Ginny eventually remembered to go back to the common room, where she heard most of the Gryffindor House was dealing with the search and seizures fallout. She spent the first night of her school year spitting and cursing her various frustrations in vicious circles, eventually ending with her and Neville feeling sorry for each other in front of the fire until they fell asleep there.

The first morning of classes they walked to the Great Hall together and nodded with conviction at one another, silently agreeing that there would be no more wasted hours of moaning. Inside the doors, they parted ways to their assigned tables.

 _Assigned tables._ Not House tables, but assigned seats at little square pub tables where they were forced to endure meals with their new student groups.

Neville went to sit beside Greg Goyle while Ginny weaved her way to the front of the hall. In unusual form, the entire faculty was in attendance for breakfast. She tried not to grimace as she once more saw her favourite professors – McGonagall and Flitwick – each placed, stone faced, next to a Carrow sibling. McGonagall had the poor luck of also having Snape to her right side. Probably placed there to keep her under his thumb, but Ginny liked to think her Professor only stayed as a buffer between him and the students.

She very minutely inclined her chin as McGonagall caught her eye. A short, powerful connection of simmering resistance and a bond in the knowledge of the truth. Leaving the Tower had been a struggle that morning, and Ginny had considered not going to lectures at all – but then it was also a point to remain unaffected in the wake of the changes her school was undergoing. That was McGonagall's approach and Ginny resolved the same.

Let Snape try and rile her. She watched the man, perfectly ignoring her glare, until she was at her table almost directly under him.

At her assigned seating she was greeted by Blaise, which still took her by surprise despite his apparent appreciation for manners. She tore her glowering away from Snape and returned the pleasantries out of habit. She quickly recovered herself and asked, "has the post come?"

"Not yet."

Resisting a furtive look to the head table, she also asked, "and were your trunks searched as well?"

"What was that?" But Blaise wasn't able to say anything else and Ginny took the answer as a 'no.'

"Have you seen this?" Zacharias declared to the table, interrupting her and speaking to Blaise and Pansy rather than Ginny. Which was more understandable when he clarified, " _all_ Seventh Years are required to take the Dark Arts together, first thing, _every_ morning."

"You're joking. What about qualifying?"

"But I wasn't _in_ D.A.D.A. this year..."

While the three shared some mild unease, Ginny opened her schedule to see she had her first class with the other Carrow in Muggle Studies, all Sixth Years, every morning, _then_ they had Dark Arts directly after.

"Joy," she said, feeling nothing of the sort. She poured coffee for herself and, from her particularly grumpy state, felt a pang of misery at no longer being able to enjoy the fresh eggs, home grown potatoes, and her mother's hand-kneaded bread of The Burrow.

"Do you really drink the coffee here? It takes like what I imagine goblin backwash might," Blaise said, frowning at Ginny with a condescending sort of sadness. He smirked, casting a sly glance. "Smith, you would know. Does it taste like goblin backwash?"

"What? Oh, _come on_. That was _two years_ ago. You could hardly tell her blood was tainted."

"You certainly could. But then, you really shouldn't have lost that bet..."

"You're one to talk. The skirts you've been with _without_ anyone having leverage on you..."

Ginny picked at a bowl of fruit as her three table mates chittered like children. "This is your state of conversation when there's a literal war about to start. Brilliant."

Predictably, none of the three were amused by her observation.

"Oh, sod off," Zacharias sneered. "Like you've seen anything of a _war,_ Weasley. That little excursion to the DoM could have been a _tea_ for all we know."

Thinking back to Bill's wedding and the end of last term, she wanted to correct him otherwise, but settled for rolling her eyes. She scoffed, "yeah, so I've been told before."

According to her family, she was too young for the war. She was too young to have curses and hexes sent at her by Death Eaters _three_ times already in her life. Ginny _couldn't_ know about the war! It wasn't as if she were already _in it_.

"But you have seen other things," Blaise said to Ginny, his tone soft and nearing sympathetic. There was a sharpness to his words that caught in the atmosphere. Both Zacharias and Pansy quieted, loud in their sudden attention. Blaise was next to Ginny and he leaned towards her, appearing very sincere. She thought he meant maybe the wedding, but he said, "your first year, wasn't it?"

She felt her skin pale as her blood drained with a sudden sinking swell of fear. Ginny didn't know what Blaise was saying. She stuttered on a sound and then he leaned away, nonchalant.

"Well, it's not like any of us _really_ know what happened then. Rumours, is all."

Surrounded by a hundred people and Ginny could hear her heartbeat louder than anything else. Worse yet she didn't know why. Screwing up her face she pushed out a harsh, _tch_ , from her teeth. "What's that even supposed to mean?"

"Nothing," he said evenly. "Forgive me for bringing up such a sensitive subject."

But she was up from her chair and her hands were cold and bone white, dread in her for some reason and she wanted to flee. Trying to cover her discomfort, Ginny transfigured her mug into a lidded canister. She might have said other meaningless things as she stalked from her table.

Her fast footsteps couldn't match the thudding beat in her chest.

The Entrance Hall gave her some illusion of freedom and space, the stories-high front wall and doors enchanted to glass for the warmer months. She could see the courtyard, the drying autumnal grounds, open grey skies, and the expanse of the forest between Hogwarts and Hogsmeade village beyond. The morning light stung her eyes from where she watched inside the castle walls.

When she was younger, being trapped indoors had the simple solution of visiting Hagrid and his hut that had been like a miniature home to her. Ginny had started that habit in her first year.

First year. She remembered feeling something of isolation, exhaustion, and uncertainty, but that could be said of anyone going away to school after a sheltered life.

Ginny's first year meant...nothing to her.

The fear that laced its way down her middle told her otherwise.

-o-

The amazing thing about Muggle Studies as taught by Alecto Carrow was that the woman mentioned _actual_ muggle things. Muggle understandings and portrayals of magic, in particular. Of course, she focused on the stories, fictional and real, of witch hunts. The purpose of the lesson being that Muggles didn't understand, feared, and loathed magic and wanted its users gone. They wanted to kill all wizards and witches alike and in all sorts of awful ways, according to Carrow.

But Ginny's own lack of Muggle literacy had her biting her tongue. "This is just _wrong_ ," was as far as she had managed to argue. Muggles liked magic now, she thought. Some of them were fascinated by it – just like a reversal of her father. At least, she was pretty sure it could be like that.

Her classmates who were raised in mixed families were more eloquent on the subject, but they were silenced and had House points taken when they tried to refute the lesson.

"Your narrow experience with muggles, when looked at against a larger body of evidence is only a fractional and minor component of the larger spectrum. Blindly taking your biased account as a template for muggle behaviour is _not_ how this classroom will be presenting _fact_ ," had been Professor Alecto's retort.

"Do you think he'll be any different from Professor Alectoad?" Ginny asked Luna as they walked together to their second hour. She rhythmically bounced a stack of books against her thighs as she walked, feeling energetic and fidgety after having to forcefully keep herself from jumping up every time Professor Carrow had said something awful in class. And now she would have to deal with the brother. She tacked on, "he's the less ...refined... of the two. That's my sense."

"A wild card," Luna agreed. She had transfigured her quill into a bubble wand in class, having _boldly_ forgone note-taking, and was now twirling a trail of shimmering, multi-coloured baubles behind her. When they popped there was glitterfall and the scent of lilacs.

"Do you think his lesson will be a 'join the Dark side' puppet show?"

Luna smiled, a dreamy expression. "Imagine he's quite good at crafting, though?"

"Such a waste! All that talent robbed by insecurity, prejudice, and hatred. Oh, what a shame."

"His calling missed."

"Now he has to settle for re-enacting the daily ops to the jaw-draggers in the ranks with his under-appreciated art."

"On accident he makes a Harry puppet without his scar and The Boss is _very_ upset."

"It's the only proof that at least at _one_ time he had been able to lay a finger on The Chosen One."

They shared muted giggles and pulled a coping shroud of normality around them until they arrived in the former Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom. Outside the door a crowd of Sixth Years were hovering with anxious faces. The look of the space hadn't changed much from Snape's time as its inhabitant, but Ginny realised a moment later the reason for their hesitance; there was a telling smell of sickness in the air coming from the empty classroom. Her insides tightened in sympathy but she clenched her teeth and breathed lightly through her mouth to avoid the worst of it.

"That was Neville's class before us," she told Luna. "All the Seventh Years together like ours."

With no sign of their professor and with no one else stepping forward to take care of the obvious, Ginny was the first to go inside. She took out her wand and vanished something awful on the floor that she didn't bother to look at properly. She asked Luna for more bubbles to mask the lingering smell while she opened the windows. Tentatively, the other students followed their lead.

There was a screeching creak and, as one, the students turned to see the classroom door shutting.

"Five points from Gryffindor and Ravenclaw for unauthorised spell casting," said Professor Amycus Carrow as he revealed his hiding spot behind the door. The whites of his eyes were very visible as he leered at the group. He spoke in a high and wavering voice. "What a habit you have, Miss Weasley. This is the second time in less than a day you have felt entitled to abuse your magic."

Not thinking the possible repercussions through, Ginny snorted, not at all intimidated by the man.

"Everyone sit _now._ " His smile dropped and so did his airy tone. The male Carrow walked to the front of the desks. "Except you, Miss Weasley."

Ginny stopped short from dropping into a seat. Frowning, she was slow to shrug off her book bag and robe.

"Yes. Everyone here knows Miss Weasley, I'm sure. Youngest of her kin, the only female in the litter. The last of the family in school, it seems."

She narrowed her eyes. "Ron's sick, isn't he."

"Of course, of course. So perhaps it is the _illness_ in your family that's muddied your mind?" Carrow strolled a pace back and forth in front of the class as he spoke, trying to look cool as he twisted and turned his wand in his hand.

"How's that?"

"You hexed a fellow student last night, didn't you, Miss Weasley? Doling out a punishment at your own leisure –"

Oh. That. Ginny rolled her eyes. "Smith was being a _twat._ "

"– and so I'm assigning you detention to be served immediately. Come to the front of the class." The man ceased his strange walking and settled a crude sort of look on her. Satisfaction, maybe.

She hesitated only a little, and went to tuck her wand in her hair, not thinking she would need it, but Carrow told her to keep it out. Stiff in her movements, she walked to where Carrow waved for her to stand.

"What was it you used evening last on poor, unsuspecting Mister Smith?"

Awkwardly, Ginny admitted, "it's just a hex I've been using since I was a kid. It's just something I made up."

"Ah. I see. Well, you should demonstrate for us, since you seem so eager to use it."

She had the thought he meant for her to use it on herself, but then Carrow made a show of looking around the room and narrowing his focus in on a shy-looking Ravenclaw girl.

"Miss Fawnstone, how about," he said, pointing. His eery snarl of a smile was back on his face.

Ginny watched Helia shrink into her seat. She shot her "professor" a withering look. "I'm not thick. You're giving me detention for casting it, why would I use it again?"

"Because _I'm telling you to._ " The turn in his presentation was a bit much for the classroom and everyone, Ginny included, was put-off by the man and silent.

But she was a stubborn person, and Ginny shook her head. "I won't."

"You won't?" He repeated, and he wasn't as angry as she thought he would be about her denial. Almost like he had wanted her to refuse. "Class, this is the perfect example of a reckless, insubordinate pupil refusing to adhere to simple directions."

"You were telling me to –"

" _Silencio_ ," Carrow cut her off, his wand pointed at Ginny and the rest of her words were blanks from her lips. It was like the whole room were under the spell and no one made a sound but for Carrow. "I would like you all to know that you will not be in any danger on behalf of your impudent, reckless classmates. Those who see themselves above the rules, who see it fit to manipulate others for their own good, will not be tolerated in this school any longer."

The next spell he cast Ginny heard but didn't believe.

When she was ten, she fell off a broom after attempting and failing a close feint to the ground, and lost half the skin on her upper arm. It had peeled from her like a potato skin to a metal grater. When she was thirteen, she had been charming a fire on a cool summer night, had used a little too much effort, and scorched her knees and thighs down to the second layer of tissue. Summer past she had accidentally magicked a nail through her palm while trying to fix a loose board in the garden shed. Two days before Bill's wedding she lost her footing while carrying a wine glass and sliced the veins and tendons of her wrist clean across.

The pain she felt at the casting of Carrow's cruciatus was different and worse. Or maybe it was those things she remembered all at once and amplified. Inside her and outside of her and screwing into every tiny space of her body. Pressure pushing in on her like the end of a fat, swollen tick burst between nails. Mostly she thought of the minnows she used to take from the pond for fishing bait when she was a child, smashing them into rocks for a wandless death. She thought of the fish she would then catch and kill with the hit of a bat to the back of their heads. The crack of wood on cartilage was a loop in her mind. A crack between her ears, and again, _crack_. Louder, _crack. Crack_. Smashing in her skull and she was certain she was cracking open, smashing into bits, splitting again and again.

When the curse lifted, the reason for the earlier sickness in the room was plain, as Ginny immediately lost her stomach as well. The bile stung over her mouth and chin and she tasted blood along with the acid. She'd bitten through her bottom lip. Over her silenced coughing and hacking, over her berating herself for the hot tears on her clammy face, someone in the class pointed out loudly, and in very sensitive words, that she'd also _pissed herself._

"Leave her there," Ginny heard Carrow say.

"She's bleeding," came Luna's voice.

"Is she? I don't see that..." Carrow walked to where Ginny was on the ground, curled over herself and she didn't remember falling there, and he stopped so that his shoes were in her bleary field of vision. He spoke very softly to her alone. "Any more _heroics_ against our esteemed _leader_ , Miss Weasley, and I will gladly keep you exactly in this spot all year."

He wasn't talking about Smith anymore, or even Snape, she thought. Her arms and legs, her shoulders and jaw, every bit of her was shaking as she raised her face to the man looking down at her and she knew he was talking about the person pulling all the strings. Carrow was telling her to stop resisting the Death Eaters, to stop fighting against the self-fashioned Lord Voldemort.

Ginny lowered her head, eyes still matched with Carrow's, and spat out a red little answer at his feet.

"Well." Carrow sneered, moving his foot from her bloodied spit. Completing his previous thought as he looked her over, "all I see is a powerless, _pathetic_ muck-about in her place. _Petrificus Totalus._ "

-o-

Professor Amycus Carrow let his first class with the Sixth Year students out a few minutes early, and directed them to walk around Ginny as they filed out of the room.

"No loitering," she heard the man snap from where he stood at the doorway behind her. A silent beat and then the squeak of shoe soles pivoting over the wooden plank flooring. Carrow ambled his way in front of Ginny, crossed his arms in a miming of a thoughtful pose and then walked to the entrance of his office across the room. He lifted the spell on her from over his shoulder, "you're dismissed, Miss Weasley."

He had decided he had won, Ginny supposed.

As her body adjusted to the freedom of movement again, her hand found her wand and she flexed her fingers over the wood. She had a thought to return the favour to Carrow, to give back all and more what he'd dished out to her. For a long moment her heart pounded in her head and as she explored with her tongue the hole from where she'd bitten through her bottom lip, she considered whether or not it would be worth the fallout.

She decided, for several reason - one being she immediately curled into herself and dry heaved for a long moment before she could stand properly - not to do anything but to collect herself and her things and leave. Managing as much as that was painful.

Outside the door, Luna and Michael Corner were the only two comfortable or stubborn enough to stay in the hallway to wait for Ginny. The sight of her ex-boyfriend was surprising and mortifying on some level and weirdly reassuring in another way, considering how they had split, and she couldn't react to him any more than a stare. ...It felt like another life when they had been together.

Despite having cleaned herself up and donning her robes, both Luna and Michael noticed her persistent trembling. The two shared a meaningful glance, Luna's more reserved than the obvious trepidation white across Michael's face, and as a group, they moved further down the corridor. At a corner, they stopped and hid between sets of armour.

"Are you..." Michael started to say to Ginny and then shut his mouth, clever enough not to finish the trite question. He whispered instead, "Carrow's in his office then?"

Ginny rubbed at her neck, scolded herself for trifling over her minor aches, and nodded.

"We should report him," he insisted.

"To whom?" Luna asked, but it wasn't accusatory. She said, "is there a person capable of any worthwhile action at the moment?"

'McGonagall,' Ginny wanted to say, but then thought better of it. Any direct move taken by their professors would be a move against Snape, the school Governors (occupied by such open-minded men as Lucius Malfoy), _and_ the entirety of the Ministry. Too much push back and McGonagall could lose her post altogether and so Ginny held her tongue.

"This won't stand. Everyone will know about this by lunch," Michael went on, increasingly nervous. "He did this to a Seventh Year, as well. An Unforgivable on no less than _two_ students."

Ginny shook her head, exasperated suddenly. "Don't you get it? This is how it is now. Our parents were – _we_ were – egotistical and daft to think Hogwarts would remain a safe haven."

She had sensed it back at King's Cross. It was just a little difficult acknowledging and accepting the truth. Even open torture wouldn't be enough for some, Ginny thought. As she knew it, if they couldn't see the abuse themselves, then there were those who would always insist, ' _it's not that bad_.'

"But it's a school," Michael tried, the hope he had in his voice feeble.

Ginny felt her anger soften, turning to weary pity. "We're not students here, Michael, we're hostages _._ "

She didn't quite trust the halls as she said as much, thinking an unknown someone was listening. She shut her mouth on the subject. Busying herself with her bag, "no matter, what's next on your schedule?"

"Divination," from Michael.

"Potions," Luna said, which was a relief for Ginny. "You too?"

"Yeah."

"You might go round to Madame Pomfrey before that."

Ginny snorted at Michael's suggestion; he knew as well as she that the Cruciatus Curse didn't leave tells if used sparingly. "For what?"

But he motioned vaguely at her face, the dried spit and dribble of blood from her puncture wound still on her chin, and said, "at least for that..."

"I'll take care of it." She waved the suggestion off. To Luna, "shall we?"

"Is that all?" There was a pause and Michael exhaled, blustered. He stared blankly at the floor a pace away and slowly shook his head. "I mean...that really happened. _That happened._ "

"It was a dominance act," Luna offered. "Before any of us could get a mind for rebelliousness, they've struck out at the ones they think of as the biggest threats."

Ginny felt her mouth twist into something mocking a smile. Her body was shaking but her words didn't. "How sweet of them to think so highly of ickle me..."

"You're saying that might be the worst of it?" Michael said, unconvinced. He ran a hand through his hair, and made a half-laugh sound of exasperation. Lower in tone, and because he knew something of Ginny's personality, "but only if you don't return and escalate, I would think."

Ginny made a face and he caught it, and he frowned back at her. She said more seriously, "if you can keep me in the know as to what's going on, Michael? I'd like to be able to prepare myself at this point, if we do act."

Briefly, her reasons for dating the boy in front of her returned to Ginny and she was thankful for his support. As begrudged as it was.

"We will have to," Luna murmured. "We will have to act against them, to be idle now would only make us cattle complacent for the slaughter."

Ginny appreciated the imagery.

"It's why they want to break us first. The older students, I mean," Michael said. He was addressing Luna, but his eyes were on Ginny with an almost apologetic sort of light. "It's like you said, they're thinning out the strong. We're more likely to be troublesome, to be leaders of some sort."

"There's not going to be any complicity," she promised Luna, trying for resolute and coming across a little grim. "But until then... until this...false pretence of learning crumbles... we're going to be late for class."

"Tell everyone about Carrow," Luna said to Michael. "They will want us to talk, but we need to control how the information is relayed in order to maintain the right perspective."

"Best course of action," he agreed. Wincing, he added, "sorry, Ginny."

"Don't be." Ginny shrugged. A small part of her was mentally saying 'told you so,' to all those who doubted her about the war and what was going to happen. "Go on. We'll talk."

Michael gave an assertive nod, and before he left, assured them in a low mumble, "we'll have the old gang together soon, as well."

When it was Luna and Ginny alone again, Luna asked, "are you fine enough to go to Potions?"

She was quiet and respectful and very tactful, which Ginny appreciated, but also thought was unnecessary. With everything Ginny had experience already, she had a sense that she'd been through worse things than Carrow's curse.

"I'll be going." But she had something to check first. "Did post come this morning?"

"Not that I noticed," Luna said and it were entirely possible she had missed the usual large and lively flock of birds delivering mail.

"I'm going to see if Pig's around. I need to know if –"

"If that route of communication is tenable? I would think it would be the natural place for them to start," Luna said. "Your housemate already had the idea to check. She went right after Carrow dismissed us."

It was nice Ginny hadn't been the only one to consider it, but the fact it was likely too late made her cuss under her breath. Echoing the words, "it's really happening."

For as much as she resented her parents at times for excluding her from _everything_ , she would have really liked to have seen them or spoken with them just then. And Fred and George, or Bill, or Harry, or Ron. She'd been tortured, didn't they know? The war wasn't happening around her, it was right this moment happening to her, and they might never appreciate as much.

"Even if they can control the students, the other professors will have ways to work around obstacles," Luna said. With a bit of wonder, "I can't imagine any Death Eater being more clever than Professor Flitwick."

Ginny nodded in agreement. "I really can't either."

"For now, is there anything more we can do?"

"No. I don't think so."

Zacharias had been right when he said Ginny didn't understand all that she had been talking about when it came to war. She knew fear and she had reacted to violence. She had thrown and received hexes, and she had run, too, once.

"Potions, then?" Luna proposed.

"To the dungeons," Ginny said.

...She knew nothing of war, but she would learn.

-o-


	3. Panic in Perpetuity

o o o

 _but something good, something good, something good_

o o o

Ginny smiled into the cresting light and kneeled down to brush the dew from the grass tickling her knees. Sunrise and the world didn't seem fully awake yet.

"Don't be distracted, Ginny," said the boy next to her. He was calm but he wasn't sharing her smile. Unlike her, he was dressed in his uniform and looking sharp compared to her own mismatched sleepwear and two pairs of woollen socks filling out Charlie's old paddock boots. As always, he looked fresh and well rested, his dark hair perfectly combed and Slytherin tie perfectly pressed and held in place with a fashionable clip. He was a little impatient with her and he said, not _entirely_ unkindly, "you are going to do this favour for me, aren't you?"

Humming, she nodded her head. She teased him from around her smile, "I can't believe a _prefect_ isn't capable of doing this on his own. He needs help from a little First Year for something so _simple_..."

He didn't appreciate being teased, she had learned, but her family had given her a strong tendency for needling sore spots. Ginny knew it as affection.

"In some of my dreams we're the same age," she told him, meeting his impatience with wistfulness. This dream wasn't like that though. He was older and taller and she barely reached his collar even when on her tiptoes.

A skeptical noise left him and she caught him make a quick scan of her person in the corner of his eyes. "Do you dream you're my age?"

Ginny clicked her tongue. "As if. _You_ are _my_ age and you're shorter than me."

"You must fancy us as equals." He was not too keen at the idea.

But she was equally perturbed.

"We _are_ equals. You're not even as old as Charlie. We're definitely equals." She bounced her chin, certain. She couldn't have survived her household if she had not thought herself on the same level as all her brothers. Well... at least the younger four.

"I need them all gone," he reminded her, sounding grumpy but valiantly trying to hide it with a change in topic.

Ginny put her hands on the upper railing of the wooden fence before her and stepped up so that she gained some height. She tilted her head and whistled lowly at the task he had laid out.

She had agreed to do this for him, hadn't she?

She counted three roosters total.

"Snap their necks for me, Ginny," he pressed, completely masking his grumpiness this time with all his cultured suavity.

Laughing, she gave him a sneaky grin. "See, this is how I know you're a bloody city boy, innit. 'Snap their necks.' How _uncouth_."

Swinging herself over the fence, Ginny greeted Hagrid's roosters and hens. She picked up the one named Sonny and petted at its black and grey speckled feathers. She dropped to sit on the ground and held the rooster in one hand while she pulled her wand from her pocket. It used to be she had used a knife before she had come to school, but now she could perform the spell her mother had used a thousand times to do the very same task. It fell somewhere in the area of a hex, even with its utilitarian purpose, and wasn't very much to look at – there was no blade or trail of light to follow – and yet she could feel him following her movements with curious contemplation.

She drew her wand across Sonny's neck and under its tip, a lone slice opened an artery. Red spilling up and out and down her legs, draining the chicken in her lap. Ginny shivered from the hot splash of blood that cooled rapidly and took from her the heat in her body, but she was warmly satisfied at the look she spied from the boy watching her.

Riddle was a little awed, she thought.

Another smile. "Good thing you have me here, right Tom?"

o o o

Chapter Three

Panic in Perpetuity

o o o

Lunch hour was the same for all students and as the Entrance Hall filled, Ginny took a moment to huddle with Neville and Luna under the Founders tapestry.

Neville tilted Ginny's chin up as he held her head in his hands in order to take a look at the puncture wound she'd made through her bottom lip. His hands were cool with worry and his face was caught between angry and sad. He asked, "does it hurt?"

Quite a bit. "It's fine...at least it's not swelling anymore. Found something in the potions storage for that."

"There's a paste I can make in the greenhouse to keep the wound from going bad. It will scar, though, if you don't go to the Hospital Wing for a proper suture spell."

"Oh _no!_ A _scar?"_ Ginny gasped, playing. She had about a thousand scars already. One more wouldn't make much difference. "Who did that git make a show of in your class, anyhow? Carrow was all too happy to show off the remains of his work for our class..."

"Seamus, if you'd believe it," Neville answered as he finished his inspection. "We barely made half the lecture before Carrow laid him out."

"Our Ginny nearly made a full minute," Luna said, eyes almost a little proud as she caught Ginny's sardonic smile.

"Need to set a good precedent," she said.

Neville was less enthused. "Don't make light about this, please."

And like a stone attaching itself to her tongue, Ginny swallowed a hard lump in her throat at the reminder Neville had reason for being wary about the Cruciatus Curse. Eloquently, "shit. I'm sorry. I wasn't... I'm just trying to get a handle on it, you know? Sorry Neville."

Sighing, he ran a hand through his hair and shrugged a shoulder. "No, no. I get it. I'm worried, is all. Don't apologise..."

"Is Seamus recovering?" Luna asked, having looked for him and not seen him in the crowd of students.

"He's not handling being tortured nearly so well," Neville said, giving a strange look to Ginny.

The comparison was a bit short of fair, Ginny thought. She might have physically dragged herself to Potions, but she was reeling from the curse and sporadically trembling where she stood. Her stomach turned in on itself again and again and she kept fidgeting as if subconsciously unsure the torture were really over. It had felt like the curse had gone on for hours -even if Luna insisted it was precisely forty-eight seconds- and she wasn't entirely able to accept it was done with.

She didn't want the people sending her covert glances to know she had been affected, though. Ginny was strong and they needed to know that.

Neville was on his own thought.

"We can't let them use Unforgivable curses like some sort of behavioural...modification method," he said.

"They might not expect they will have to," Luna said. She was watching the sister Carrow part students, gracelessly plodding her way towards the Great Hall. "I imagine they predicted these attacks would properly stifle our ire."

"Luna's right. And even Michael thinks as much, as well," Ginny told Neville, filling him in on the earlier conversation.

"Do you think two students will be enough for them?" He asked. "And they happened to pick only Gryffindor students. That won't do it."

Luna shook her head. "Unless the point is to emphasize a sense of separation between the houses. This way they are making the 'brave' ones the troublesome ones."

"Carrow did try and have me turn on Helia, as well. Was it the same for Seamus?"

"What? As in, attack her..?" Neville asked, answering her question.

"Yeah. He picked on the quietest, most harmless person he could find and he wanted me to hex her. He _is_ a spot of pond scum, so he might have thought I would actually do it if it meant saving myself some skin." Ginny snorted at the mere _suggestion_ of the thought. "Gross."

"Amycus Carrow." Luna thought the name over, matching Ginny's train of thought.

"Amy-pus," Ginny tried, her finger thoughtfully tapping to the side of her chin. "Like, pus from a sore?"

While Neville looked between them, a little lost at the name calling game, Luna twisted her lips dubiously. "You can do better."

"Did I tell you about 'Alectoad?'"

"Yes. It is very appropriate."

"It's a little insulting," Neville interjected, surely passionate on Trevor's behalf.

They were taking too long in their spot, ignoring the thinning of the crowd, and one of the new faculty was quick to admonish them for their lingering.

"You three, get to your assigned tables," a younger man hissed at them as he patrolled the Entrance Hall.

Ginny recognised him as the person from the train who had given her the Ministry issued uniform. He was familiar, too, beyond that, and she whispered to Luna as they moved, "do you know that guy from anywhere?"

Casting a surreptitious glance, Luna inclined her chin. She said, "Adrian Pucey. He was on the Slytherin Quidditch team. You don't remember him?"

Making a face, she realised she did. She had always called him, 'Pukey.' ...Not really one of her more inspired nicknames. "Didn't he graduate ages ago? The hell is he doing here?"

Luna could only make a reserved face conveying 'I don't know' before they had to split ways.

Still watching Pucey with blatant suspicion, Ginny missed McGonagall cutting through the Great Hall to find her.

"Is it true?" McGonagall asked, skipping greetings. She was too straight in her posture and the lines on either side of her mouth were tense from clenching her jaw. Her eyes, too, had a barely restrained flashing of emotion in them. Not directed at Ginny, thankfully, but rather there in her favour. "I've heard the talk, Miss Weasley."

The Great Hall was too quiet around them and it was obvious more than a few were aware of the conversation.

"Did he – ?" She had a hand out and it wavered uncertainly at reaching for Ginny's face, a tender gesture floundering in wont of McGonagall's normal aloofness.

Ginny shook her head, touched by the short display even without its comforting conclusion. "Nothing happened, Professor."

McGonagall was confused for a beat and then she wilted very slightly with catching onto the bull shit. Tired already with the thrill of dealing with both students –enough trouble on their own– _and_ genocidal fanatics, she gave Ginny a half-stern stare. Completely unconvinced, she repeated, "nothing happened?"

Ginny made a show of thinking and clicked her tongue. "Got points in Potions for being exceedingly brilliant, Professor."

Slughorn had liked her use of thickening powder to stopper her puncture wound.

Looking very purposefully beyond McGonagall, Ginny smirked at the Carrows sat together at the head table. She continued, "otherwise, it was a very dull and forgettable morning. Might've slept through my first two lectures, sad to say."

"And as for the absent Mister Finnigan?" McGonagall asked.

"Oh, he would say the same, I think." Ginny didn't want to use double-speak, but she didn't see any other option. Admit to the abuse? Get McGonagall riled up and fired before the end of the first day? Start something in uncharted territory with unaccounted variables?

Not a smart action.

And it was not that she believed McGonagall to be so incompetent, but Ginny needed the woman, her mentor, her greatest ally, to know this would be a long fight for the school. It was _their_ haven and stronghold –not the pissing pot of the Death Eaters– and they had to fight to _win._

So, yes, Professor McGonagall, she had been tortured, and Seamus, too, but she wasn't going to _admit_ it.

(Admitting it would be to accept its reality – that it had happened – maybe even that it had worked and that she was surrendering –)

She wasn't about to let the Death Eater cronies see any whisper of weakness in her.

"Miss Weasley," and Ginny returned her attention McGonagall, "you've at least had that lip of yours examined?"

"Yes, ma'am. It's taken care of." Mostly.

It was a little odd to her how, without any other physical signs of the curse, all anyone wanted to talk about was the smallest of wounds. They must have needed something to look after in order to feel like they were helping. Something like that, she thought.

McGonagall lowered her voice.

"Do _not_ go kicking a sleeping dragon," she said, unaware of Ginny's wandering thoughts. Her discomfort was clear on her face, but it seemed she had resigned –very hesitantly– to letting Ginny get away with her antics. For the moment. With some acerbity, "then I will see you tonight. Gryffindor is having a House meeting. Seven o'clock."

"Wouldn't dare miss it, Professor."

McGonagall let a very disappointed 'hmm' from her lips and hurried Ginny past her. "And to think I briefly entertained the dream you might take after your brother, Percy..."

Ginny focused on smirking at the parting comment rather than the numerous curious gazes tracking her from around the Great Hall.

Joining her table for the meal, Ginny had barely touched her seat before Zacharias was leering at her.

"Did you really piss yourself?" He asked, speaking with a strange cross of amusement and disdain. "That's what I'm hearing. Everyone's talking about it."

Not even concerned with looking up to acknowledge his daft lack of tact, she said, "I was tortured, Smith. What's your excuse for all the shit you spew out?"

Zacharias gaped. "I mean, I'm insulted? But also that was a funny retort, Weasley."

Still on his own track, he parroted, "tortured, huh?"

If it had been someone on the other side of the divide, either of the other two Seventh Years seated with her, she might not have cared to react to such flippant needling. Zacharias, though, had been a member of Dumbledore's Army, if a trying one at that; Ginny found she couldn't let his attitude go completely uncontested. She shook her head a little, both angry and baffled. "How are you so unaffected? You _saw_ Seamus, didn't you? I mean, you saw what happened –"

Before she could go on, Blaise cut her off. "He didn't see it. Bloke retreated to his bed for morning lectures."

"I have no regrets," Zacharias confirmed.

"Unbelievable." Ginny rubbed at her eyes and tried to will away the headache that had been haunting her since her _Dark Arts_ lesson. "When you hear about professors using illegal curses on students, your response is mockery."

There was a tense moment and the noise around them was palpable next to the silence of their table.

"Life wouldn't be bearable if I didn't laugh, Weasley," Zacharias said, tone lower and more even than usual. With a hint of admonished sincerity, he acquiesced, "not that... not that it had to be at your expense."

It hit her that he had a very similar take on processing unpleasant things as she did –using humour to mask deeper responses. So they both were daft and lacking tact, really, but wasn't that what she preferred?

Ginny dropped her hands from their massaging to consider her company at the table. There was a sombre atmosphere over everyone and for a moment they were all intent on bleakly staring the untouched plates of food before them. Settling her eyes on a platter of chilled grapes herself, she felt like crying. The urge to whimper rattled up her chest and throat and she had to bring her hands back to her mouth to keep the pitiful thing from escaping. She covered the tell with another tired circling of her fingers at her temples. Every part of her was tired.

"Did you all know the owls have been put on a 'sign out' system?" She shared, needing to focus on something.

Blaise responded first. Unsurprised, he said, "of course they have."

"I suppose that might save you from writing a fun letter to your parents, Weasley," Pansy said. Not a nice thing to say, maybe, but even she lacked some sharpness.

Ginny huffed, allowing herself to be mildly amused by the jab. Honestly, "I don't plan to tell them."

A brief and shallow line appeared between Pansy's brows at the admission. The expression was fleeting. She asked, a little incredulous, "are you serious about the owls?"

"Yeah. Eleri checked right after..." She twirled her fingers as the words, 'I was tortured,' were too raw to leave her.

"That's probably why post never arrived this morning," Blaise said, taking her vague gesturing in stride. He was thoughtful for a moment and Ginny could see him working out something before he spoke. Lowering his tone so that all three at the table very subtly leaned forward to hear him. "You were right about luggage sweeps. No one in Slytherin was victim, at least no one has admitted as much, but the searches happened in Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw."

"Blaise," Pansy said. " _Why_ –?"

But she stopped when he looked at her in a very particular way and Pansy thinned her lips into an unhappy line.

Ginny had almost forgotten about the seized property with everything else that had happened since. She pointed out, "that's why you weren't surprised just now about the sign-out for our owls."

"It is a simple step between the two to make."

Ginny had to agree. "Have you heard anything about what all was seized?"

At that question, Blaise determined he had shared enough. He relaxed in his posture and one side of his mouth rose up in a sly smile. "When you find yourself needing anything you might be missing, ask me then."

Zacharias lifted his eyebrows and Ginny groaned out, "figures."

"Always a profit to be made in rough times, Weasley," Blaise said.

"You won't be the only one to think like that." She knew for a fact that others would see the ripe opportunity for a market to grow in the school. She had.

"Any others won't have the longevity I will," he suggested, punctuated with a quick wink to Ginny.

Ginny rolled her eyes.

Feeling lonelier than she had a moment before, she slumped into her arms on the tabletop. Blaise had managed to have her fooled for a moment there before revealing his ultimate intentions. He had made sure one thing was clear to her, though – no matter what, she couldn't let herself become isolated within the castle. The DA needed to remain active and they needed to establish connections to the outside world. Only with those supply lines secured would they have a chance of retaking the castle.

-o-

Half an hour before McGonagall's meeting, Gryffindor Tower was bustling as everyone was taking stock of what supplies had made it through the 'random' Department for Educational Welfare and Security searches. While only a few people had been stewing the night before about the changes in the school, after what had happened to both Seamus and Ginny, for most there was no longer any persisting doubt. The younger students were excitedly bouncing on their heels to be helpful and most of the older students were giving orders about what to do and bits of advice over what to expect.

Harry, Hermione, Fred and George were mentioned frequently and the names seemed to jump in volume to Ginny's ears. _Harry knew how to move around the whole school without anyone seeing him_... _Hermione would have known all of the uses for these off the top of her head... The Weasley twins can concoct something wicked from three beetle eyes, a pine bough, and their bedding, swear it ..._

"Do we want mints?" Neville asked Ginny, looking between her and the food contributions from a Third Year student. They had taken charge of the inventory processing.

Not really knowing if they were worthwhile, she shrugged and supposed, "yes?"

"Right." Neville sighed and thanked the boy for his help. He was bemused by the collection they had going. "You don't think this is too much too fast? We haven't had issues with meals yet. They have to feed their own, and since our tables are shared, we shouldn't be starving any time soon."

He wanted to be hopeful, but as he hadn't already disagreed with her suspicions and actions, Ginny figured he saw the logical conclusions just as she did.

"Think about it – they've already cut off our major means of communication and stolen from us – withholding what necessities are left is definitely a possibility."

That was how she would do it, if Ginny were the _holds-hostage-and-tortures-children_ type.

Her seriousness faded, and her lips curled into one cheek. She said, proud of herself, "you could say it is... in-Neville-table."

Neville snorted and very generously rolled his eyes. "Uh-huh."

"Inevitable, Neville. Get it? In-Neville-table?"

"Yes. So funny. So clever. I am chortling so hard it is silent."

"You're just jealous of my wordplay skills..."

Neville stilled his movements, closed his eyes with a contented expression, and sang, " _his eyes are as green as a fresh-pickled toad –_ "

Ginny's mouth dropped open and she breathed out a laugh.

"I can't believe you remember that!" She rolled the inventory list she had and ' _thwapped_ ' his arm. "And I stand by that observation, have you know. That is a _fine_ compliment to pay someone."

"How do you know what fresh-pickled toads look like?"

"Um! _Experience_ , of course. What? You _didn't_ pickle toads to explore potential magical applications when you were a kid?"

"Definitely not." But Neville had a smile in his eyes as he returned to organizing things. There was a silent beat and he was almost reminiscent when he next spoke. "If we can't have Harry here, Ginny, I'm glad we have you."

"Pfft." Ginny screwed her face at him, feeling the sentiment was a stretch. But the expression made her grimace as she pulled at the healing skin under her lip. She cussed and tentatively patted at her chin to see if the scab had opened. It had.

Neville noticed her distraction.

"Oh, I remember! I grabbed something from the greenhouse for that." From his robe pocket he produced a jar and opened it to something smelling very strongly of earth. "Just a dab over the cut for a few days. It'll help it heal."

Accepting the offering, she said teasingly, "shit, you make Herbology seem useful."

"Ginny. It _is_ extremely useful."

"Yeah. Sure. Of course."

"This is a widely known fact."

"So boring though," she moaned, heavy on the dramatics. "Binns could make it more interesting..."

Neville snorted. "Yeah, he's lucky his is a subject where he doesn't need to handle anything physical very often..."

"Ghost professor in Herbology would definitely be fun," Ginny said. They played at being ghosts trying to calm mandrakes and griping at students for getting rashes from plant oils when 'I _don't feel anything!'_ for a few minutes before their mirth faded.

"But you know," Ginny started, a new idea in her head, "we should use what we can from the greenhouses, too."

Neville was less excited at this proposal than the others. He eventually conceded with the condition it was, "only enough to get our own pots growing."

"We can rig something in one of the bathrooms, maybe?"

"Not if they're forcing the house elves to report on us..."

"If we're already storing all of this –" and she swept a hand at the growing collection, "– in the Room of Requirement, then why not have the garden in there as well?"

"Assuming we're able to get into the room." He wasn't sure. "Let me scout a few options."

They didn't talk more about those plans because it was at that moment, with the entirety of the Gryffindor House filling the common room with various groupings of emergency and potentially-for-emergency supplies, that McGonagall came through the portraitway. She moved hastily, swathed in a heavy tartan cape and carrying a securely closed bag with her, clearly back from a spot of travel. She took a second to slow down, taking in the scene.

Ginny and Neville were quick to assuage her before she put together a demand for an explanation.

" – so these DEW-P.U. searches, you got me, Professor – ?"

"I'm sorry, Professor, I know this looks like a mess – "

" – without any prior notice or consent from the students – "

McGonagall held her hands up, "sh, sh, _shh... Shush,_ you two."

Together, they snapped closed their jaws. The rest of the common room slowly quieted, too, as McGonagall's arrival became apparent.

"Stockpiling?" She said, and at Neville's nodding, "good. Who are those in charge of recording in-take? How are we categorizing? Do you have proper storing techniques in place? Don't show me what you have, Mister Longbottom – I prefer to know only the most general information lest they try and pry it out of me."

As McGonagall swept into the room, dropping both cape and bag on Neville with a curt 'thank you,' and immediately setting to support and fine-tune their efforts, Ginny beamed and returned to work as well.

Later, when the commotion had calmed and the students had gathered around and listened to McGonagall's version of a 'welcoming speech,' Ginny kept going over plans and courses of action. She had so many questions and uncertainties that she needed to address.

What was the current status of the Room of Requirement? Were the Death Eaters attempting surveillance beyond the owls and post? Had McGonagall alerted the Order about Snape already, and if so, what was their plan for apprehending him? And why hadn't anyone thought to tell Ginny that Snape was Headmaster?

Well, she wouldn't ask that last one...

McGonagall didn't shy from addressing the reality of Voldemort and the Death Eaters.

"Make no mistake, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named wants Hogwarts Castle. It has been a conquest of his for as long as his campaign of fear and violence has raged, and it remains a clear objective for him during this revival. He yet seeks power, control, and he sees his defeat in the generations raised in this school. Educating the young, empowering magical children of every background, encouraging bonds of friendship between our students –he sees the values we embody here as a challenge to his ideals...

"And they are," she said. "We must remain a steadfast post of resistance to his regime."

She looked around the faces all watching hers in silence, Ginny included.

"But I cannot let you fight with careless abandon. I will not allow it. You must act only in the most dire of circumstances, and even then with the _greatest_ appreciation for the repercussions of your actions, for others and for yourself." She paused and in a second her face became more weary than Ginny had ever seen. "I cannot assure you of your protection and your safety. I have failed you in that. ...But I will not let this war enter our halls any more. I will be _bloody damned sure_ you are armed with the knowledge, the skills, and the means to surviving this occupation.

"I know everyone in this room values action over inaction, but do not misjudge the latter for weakness or cowardice. _Think_ about your environment, your limits, your talents, the circumstances against you and those working for you. Determine what you can work in your favour and how to make it so. Be consistent in your endeavours, do not forgo the values you espouse in a rush of passion, and remember we are a community – we are a _school._

Professors Sprout, Flitwick, and Slughorn are all, at this moment, staring at the faces of their students as I am. They are all sharing the same warnings and worry I am, and the same imperative message to remain a student body that is –if not working together, then living under the same pressing thumb together.

"They've split you into these farcical 'diversity' groups with the clear intention of dividing you all along perceived ideological lines, to make you miserable and anxious. Do not fall for this tactic. Share your meals with your fellow students, talk to each other, ask questions and listen. Find a safe topic and be open, receive openness in kind."

McGonagall paused. "And if you cannot make headway, or tread in the water, if you meet abuse and aggressiveness –if you really must, then wait for a quiet moment, take a deep breath, and then another, before hexing anyone."

Transfiguring a roll of parchment into a diagram of a nondescript body, she pointed her wand to the hands, one and then the other. "Disarming first is preferable, but further debilitation is not without merit. Hands are a small target, often hard to hit, but tempting in order to stall potential wandless casting. I recommend these options..."

Ginny, feeling well versed in McGonagall's introduction to preventative-duelling, tapped Neville, who was next to her, and motioned him to follow her. Over the sound of McGonagall demonstrating a babbling hex on Romilda Vane, the two snuck around a few students to the stairs leading to the boys' sleeping quarters.

Casting a mumble-mute spell to keep their conversation private, Ginny got to her point. "We need our D.A. members list, and we need to encrypt our lists of supplies."

Neville wasn't immediately on the same page as her and shook his head a little in confusion. "The D.A. list? For what?"

"I want to know who's willing to participate in an active resistance and I want to know who I should let lay low on the periphery. Though, I'm pretty sure we'll have new names on the list this year..."

"Ginny, McGonagall just told us not to organise like this."

She blinked. "So? She's also demonstrating hexes for our entire house right now."

" _And_ ," she continued, "I think if we have our lists encrypted, one person should have the lists, and another the cypher, but never one person with both. I don't think you and I are good choices – we're a little obvious –"

"Ginny..."

" – We also need to get the tunnels to Hogsmeade secured. Fred and George mentioned two that were blocked and that were struck from Harry's map and I don't think anyone knows about them. I bet we could reopen them – "

"How are you going to find them in the first place?"

"...We don't have the map... Right, right." One arm around her middle, and the other upright, Ginny clasped a fist and lowered her head to rest against her thumb. She tapped the hand against her forehead. "We could build our own tunnel..."

Neville gave a hopeless glance to McGonagall, and catching it, Ginny frowned. She asked, "what's wrong?"

"It's just... I'm with you, Ginny. You know I am. But... after this morning... what if you let your planning rest for the night? Give yourself a second to breathe."

"I told you about Zabini's plans, didn't I? He's going to try and get us cornered into dealing with him. We can't wait for all of this – this _hostaging_ – to unfold. We need to circumvent the prongs of attack before they ever know we're onto them –"

"I hear you," Neville said. He raised his palms face up, placatingly. "I'm not saying you're wrong. But let's listen to the rest of McGonagall's lecture. She's also asked for a word with a few us after, okay? We have time, Ginny."

He meant well. He did. He was being responsible, probably.

She reminded herself Neville had reasons to be cautious and more thoughtful than her energetic, impulsiveness normally allowed. A few hours ago she had been tortured and she was recovering, but Neville had been dealing with the fallout of his parents' involvement from the last war for over a decade. Day in and day out, seeing from afar and yet so intimately, the repercussion of allegiance and defiance.

He wanted to think they could avoid another situation like that by being especially conscientious, that they had time to assess and deal with everything slowly and according to a thorough script.

Ginny felt another shiver seize her arm and a residual pang shoot down her spine, and thought, they didn't have much time at all.

She was more reserved until, as Neville had said, McGonagall pulled Neville and Ginny aside before departing for the evening.

"Before you hunt any dragons, Miss Weasley," and she hushed Ginny's quick protest, "put your mind to work on something that might prove useful."

McGonagall retrieved her bag from where Neville had placed it earlier and from within its overflowing contents withdrew a thin roll of parchment. "I am sure you will be attempting to determine ideal locations for your stashes. Or perhaps you might have a particular place in mind, only it might require some work to open..."

Neville and Ginny shared a glance and knew McGonagall meant the Room of Requirement.

"...which would be difficult to carry out without certain tools. This is a good start." She handed Ginny the parchment. Unrolled, it was square in shape and no wider than her shoulders.

"I have established the basic framework, with a few skeletons of useful features you might pursue, and I'm giving you any relevant materials I had or was able to find. ...This won't be an easy task, but with its predecessor missing, I thought it time for your own copy."

McGonagall tapped the parchment face. Reciting with eloquence, and so that they could remember the phrase as well, " _draconis stultitiam suam."_

The ink rose out of the paper from her wand's point and, in a spectrum of colours and densities, blossomed into lines and dimensions until they were looking down at a map of the crammed and bustling Gryffindor common room.

"You'll find blueprints for the castle _here_ , and in _those_ books, information on mapping and image manipulation, signature tracking and presentation... All relevant pages I've referenced so far are marked. And as for the map view..."

Moving her wand in example, she said, "enlarge the scope like this, narrow like this, and rotate between a sectional viewing like this. I've set its constraints to the outer bounds of Hogsmeade."

Ginny almost cooed at how the map responded to different orientations. She felt how wide her eyes had grown and smoothed her countenance to something more mild. But she couldn't stop her devious smile. "Professor, I will not let you down."

"None of you could," McGonagall said, almost starkly grim against Ginny's enthusiasm. She turned away, remembering to tell them, "and don't forget to fill in the Author's section as is appropriate."

On the map in its top right corner was a compass rose and an emblem. Listed as part of the emblem after, 'The Authors,' was ' _Softpaw_ ,' followed by a comma.

Ginny's face was glowing warm. Snapping the map to her chest, she resisted gleefully hopping up and down. "Neville, my friend, mon frere, we have so much to do..."

o o o


	4. Darling, How Daring

o o o

 _to the heart through the fear slipstreams_

o o o

Aunt Alice was not Ginny's aunt; she wasn't even her mother's aunt. According to the relationship thread followed on the Prewett family tree, Alice Carnys, born Nineteen-Oh-Seven was technically a fourth cousin, two generations removed. But Aunt Alice was easier to say, and so that was how Ginny greeted her when she was herded into the woman's room, tucked tightly to her mother's side.

The woman was a diminutive shape, lost in the folds of blankets and pillows around her, only a little more visible by the bleak contrast of her grey skin and white hair against the richly coloured satins, velvets, and furs around her. From the mauve hollows of her skull two strikingly blue eyes watched Ginny as she shuffled closer, sizing her like a hawk does its prey.

Her mother patted Ginny's shoulder, squeezing her. With a very sweet note to her voice, "say 'hello' again, dear. I don't think Aunty Alice heard you."

Ginny opened her mouth, then promptly shut it.

" _No._ " The word was a hard, fighting rasp from the bed. "No, I heard the child."

"Oh, Aunty Alice," her mother said, and it sounded a bit like a recovery, "it's so good to see you after so long."

"We saw each other six months ago. It has not been long." As she talked, Ginny watched the woman's mouth and the way her lips curved back, hugging gums where teeth should have been. She spoke clearly, if very slowly and peppered with deep breaths, and Ginny realised a bit of magic was at work. "That is when I agreed to this ridiculous arrangement. I thought I would have succumbed by now. I was wrong. What trouble to bare witness to this abortion of civility."

"It is good to see you maintain that _unique_ humour!" Laughing like this were some inane oddity, her mother again patted at Ginny's shoulder, perhaps with a touch of nerves. "But this is nice, don't you think? Now you can meet the young lady who will carry on your legacy..."

Aunt Alice didn't hesitate. "My legacy died with my daughters fifteen and thirteen years ago."

Her mother's endurance hit a wall, leaving her stuttering without a reply.

Ginny let her head fall to one side. She squinted her eyes at the woman and waited for some sign of emotion from the statement. When it didn't appear, she said, "you don't seem very sad they're dead."

" _Ginny_ ," her mother whispered, aghast. "Say you're sorry."

Aunt Alice laughed, or maybe cawed like a crow might if it ever found anything humorous.

"Child," Aunt Alice said, and her smile was mean under her sunken eyes and strong brow, "if I had the energy to be upset about the past, then I would not be trapped here in this bed."

Her mother released a breath she might have been holding. "Aunty, should we allow you to rest and come back at another time – ?"

"That would be _less_ desirable, Molly."

Ginny had never heard her mother's name said with such cheerlessness. It was a naturally peppy name, bouncy and a little silly, Ginny thought, and Aunt Alice somehow made it hollow and flat.

"So you're a witch. A proper one, we suspect." Aunt Alice was still appraising Ginny with her unwavering stare. "Have you held a wand before? Do we know you are not a Squib? You could always pursue _Potions_ or _Herbology_ if you were. You might become a _historian_ even."

Aunt Alice found these suggestions funny and again crowed.

"I _have_ held a wand, actually," Ginny said, seeing the challenge in the woman's mockery for what it was. "And I _know_ I'm going to Hogwarts this September."

"Weasleys," Aunt Alice spit the name. "You and all your blustering. A daughter and you're just the same bull-headed –"

"Aunty, _please._ You know how I feel about this – None of that was – "

"How _you_ feel? Oh, _please_ , Molly, let me hear _you_ tell _me_ about your feelings. Again. I would so _love_ that, dearest."

Ginny frowned. The conversation had clearly left her behind and she flicked her gaze between the two women, trying to discern something telling.

But they both seemed to remember Ginny's presence at the same time and the topic was dropped.

Aunt Alice bent her wrist and with a soundless flourish her wand appeared. She said, "you've come here for this."

Ginny lifted her chin and the gesture made the woman sneer.

"Of course," she said. "This wand is suitable for your ilk. It never did favour my careful and thoughtful demeanour."

Her mother made a quiet argument, politely refuting the sour observation.

" _Hush_ , Molly, I believe I would know this wand better than you."

"Why?" Ginny asked, looking over the wand. It wasn't a secret that wands often had their own temperaments, but she wanted to know in particular the history of the one she would be inheriting.

Aunt Alice was pleased she asked.

"This wand is old, little girl. Older than you can appreciate. It's seen its fair number of owners – or those who think themselves so capable. It is a strong minded as the ancient tree that birthed it.."

With her face twisted into a visible frown, Ginny relented she was curious.

"The tree that formed this wand was as old as the land we walk. When the foreign invaders came, blood as empty of magic as their minds of intellect, looking for new soil to conquer, they pulled down the giant that withstood their advances. Wood as old as millennia, nurtured by the fae, and felled by greedy mortals..."

"It's an old story, Ginny," her mother said, not quite as eager to indulge the fantastic history. "We do enjoy tall-tales."

Aunt Alice ignored the interruption.

"Our kind understands the value of wood. Our ancestors sank the tree to the bottom of the deepest, coldest loch... And hardened the magic within for centuries until it was as black and unrelenting as the dark waters in which it resided. When this wand was formed, it was imbued with nothing but the ripe anger and resilience of our blood."

Daintily holding the wand out for Ginny, barely holding it steady just above the bedding, she waved it.

"Want it? Take it, Weasley child."

A silent moment and the pulse in Ginny's veins was very loud. She eyed the length of wood, beautifully carved and black as a new moon, and in an impulsive urge, went to pluck it from the woman's hand.

She meant to snatch it – she tugged at the wand but found instead she was the one ensnared. Her heart slammed hard into her ribs and she gasped.

Aunt Alice had her boney hands wrapped over Ginny's and pinched around her wrist. She was strong despite her age and ailing health, and sharp in her thinness. Bones were hard in their edges without much tissue to soften them. She pulled Ginny close and smiled. "I do not care if this wretched thing accepts you, child, but I never will. _I know what is in your heart_."

She pushed Ginny from her, right into her mother's worrying arms, and settled into her bedding. The story was over, the whimsy gone from her, and she was once again a motionless stretch of grey stone peaking from a wildly patterned earth.

"Take the child, Molly. Take the wand. Leave me. I am waiting for someone now."

She sounded very much like she were waiting for Death.

Ginny didn't feel at ease again until she and her mother had arrived back at The Burrow that evening. Her brothers ignored her apprehension and insisted she tried the wand for them. They wanted to see what she would be able to accomplish with an inherited wand; if it wouldn't be very much, as in Ron's case, or if it were a good fit, as it had been for both Fred and George.

In her hands, she thought the wood matched her perfectly no matter how she rotated the grip. Heavier than she expected, smooth despite its graining.

She looked at Ron, slumped over himself on one of their sofas between the twins. The family, as was tradition, were sat in the living room and waiting for a show. Last year, Ron had the misfortune of testing his wand and only managing to summon an offensive yellow-green eruption of what had looked like slime, but had only been a distortion of light. Not exactly something one wants to see when brandishing a wand for the first time – the first _real_ time – and Ron had been mercilessly teased for the display.

Ginny hoped she could produce something more impressive – a stream of butterflies, or a fall of flower petals, or a hovering ball of fire that burst into blue and white sparkles. But definitely something _cool_.

She felt the creaking of floorboards under her bare feet and moved the wand the way the magic in her demanded to move, like water through the earth finding course. Ginny cut the air with her wand – _I know what is in your heart_ – and the magic in her was a storm outside her.

o o o

Chapter Four

Darling, how Daring

o o o

Professor Binns was giving a lecture on the early days of Grindelwald's movement and Ginny might have listened if she didn't have work to do. She and Luna had only so many opportunities to talk and conspire together while trying to finish the map McGonagall had started for them, and History of Magic proved to be a valuable hour.

"Are you ladies doing something very important?" Binns had asked during their first lecture, noticing their blatant huddling in the back of the classroom.

"We're planning a rebellion against the people trying to kill us, Professor," Ginny had said, a day fresh from the Cruciatus Curse. She didn't feel it were too much of a stretch. "You'll teach students a hundred years from now about this. History in the making, innit."

"Oh?" He had yet to mention their delinquency since.

Other students found more interest in Ginny and Luna's endeavours than lecture.

"Is that a map of the Dungeons?" One had asked, twisted around in his seat to spy what they were doing.

"No."

"It looks like –"

"It's a drawing of a mouse fighting a frog. See?" Ginny had waved the map, charmed in a disguise, at the boy. The map was not going to be a secret, she had realised. Other students had seen it in the Gryffindor Common Room, and working on it during lecture wasn't exactly a private affair.

"...Your mouse looks like a porcupine..."

"Thank you for your critical input. Would you like a copy?"

"...Sure."

"Are you really making a map of the castle that can predict the movements of the staircases?" A Hufflepuff student had asked the second day of class.

"No, no. Surely such an article would be too powerful? And why would we stop at the staircases if we can predict movements of people instead? That's a much more useful feature... Have you received today's update in our Frog versus Mouse saga?"

Another student: "does the map tell you _anyone's_ location in the entire castle?"

"I've just added a feature to tell us what they're saying, as well."

Their map had no such capability, but if others were going to spread rumours about its existence, then Ginny wanted it to be as conflated in power as possible. Hopefully to the point where it became an _impossible_ artefact, so that when a Carrow or two did hear of it, then they would dismiss the whole thing as nothing more than a fanciful product of gossip.

Ginny arranged to meet in the library, one of the remaining neutral territories in the castle, with Luna and Neville on the first Saturday afternoon of term to complete the map there.

An announcement at lunch that day prematurely ended the plans.

Meals were required attendance, and so Ginny's assigned group members were at the table with her when the brother Carrow made his announcement.

"Students," he started, standing from his seat at the head table. His weak voice was barely registered by the even the closest tables. And then, with a modifying spell, he stated again, "STUDENTS."

The hall quieted instantly and Ginny snapped her head up from where she'd been half asleep over her arms. Across from her, Pansy Parkinson did the same, having folded all of her glorious blonde curls into something of a pillow against Blaise's shoulder in order to rest her eyes. She almost grumbled in agreement as Ginny cussed at the man.

"To maintain appropriate usage of free time," Carrow said, voice booming and invasive, "the faculty requires all students to attend a demonstration this afternoon. You will exit the Great Hall at the conclusion of the meal hour, _remain_ in the castle Entry Hall, and wait for further instructions. That is all."

"This will be fun." Zacharias said the word 'fun' in a way evocative of 'terrible.'

"Bloody demonstration," Ginny moaned. She had wanted to sneak in a nap before going to the library. Trying the thwart the Death Eaters had really eaten into her sleep schedule. "Probably some lecture on the ills of muggles and muggle-born students."

"Is this going to be a weekly event?" Blaise asked. "He made free time sound like a privilege of the past."

Ginny had missed that insinuation and immediately bristled. "Another manipulation tactic. Mandatory meals, head checks at night, suspension of clubs and Quidditch. It's ceaseless..."

"Head checks?" Blaise raised an eyebrow.

"Why does it not surprise me that Slytherins are immune to signing themselves into the dormitories..." Ginny rolled her eyes, and explained. "We have to "check in" to our rooms at night. Stamp our palms onto a parchment to prove we're not out after curfew."

Blaise smirked. "They're trying to be clever."

"Not nearly clever enough," she said.

Pansy had been watching the Carrows from the corner of her eye and didn't seem to have followed the conversation between Blaise and Ginny. She asked suddenly, eyes moving to Ginny, "do you really have that map?"

Ginny didn't allow a visible reaction to show in her expression or posture. Coolly, "map?"

Narrowing her eyes, and looking washed out and impatient, Pansy clarified, "the one that shows you where people are in the castle. Do you have a map like that?"

"I don't," Ginny said, allowing a tiny seed of disappointment in her tone.

It read as sincere because it was the truth – Luna had the map at the moment.

"Of course you wouldn't." Pansy sniffed. She sounded haughty, but there was a strange air of relief about her.

"Ha! Imagine a map like that... and then you see Professor Flitwick and Professor Vector sitting awfully close together in a little closet." Zacharias entertained several other scenarios, then darkened. "Or it's your best mate, right? And the girl you fancy... No...no, that's too much insight to have..."

"Isn't your best mate Susan Bones?"

Zacharias nodded, very glum. "She has too much pull over other girls."

Pansy actually laughed –delighted at Smith's suffering prospects. "And you have _no_ pull."

It was a manufactured change in moods from the other girl, but Ginny was intent on ignoring the people around her. She needed to finish the map. She had to reopen the Room of Requirement. She didn't have time to waste on entertaining Death Eater manoeuvres.

She had resigned herself to mentally working on problems with the map once the entire school had been herded back into the Great Hall for the as-yet-determined demonstration. Inside, the absence of all tables and chairs but for the centre spectacle of a long, raised platform was only a little noteworthy to her. She saw the entire faculty remained, all but the Carrows seated at the back of the hall in a line of theatre rows. McGonagall had placed herself between Snape and the students, who were packed around the stage and barely able to move. The murmurings of confused questions was an anxious, distracting hum in the floor.

Next to her, she heard Neville issue a low, miserable noise of recognition at the setup in the room.

Satisfied they still had allies with them, Ginny concentrated on how to implement the tracking spell on the map, tried to remember the potential incantations that could act as a root for the affect. She almost left the room entirely for a moment...

"As a school for students unlearned in most aspects of our community –" the two Carrows had appeared on the platform and the brother was speaking.

Ginny ignored him harder.

" – it is imperative that we prepare our youth, _all of you_ , for the fiercest rigours of life outside of an incubated little safe zone such as this –"

 _More torture?_ She thought with some bitterness, then scolded herself for being brought into the peacock displaying.

"Duelling is an honourable tradition – "

Again, Neville groaned. "I knew it."

"Why would they bother with that?" Her question was mostly to herself and it went unanswered. Most probably because Neville, like herself, assumed it wasn't so much a demonstration of duelling as it was a chance for the two Carrows – and Snape, too, as he was accommodating such a move, of course – to screw with their _favourite_ students.

"Who here is familiar with duelling? Can we have two students to demonstrate what they know of duelling? Oh, you all are so shy so quickly..." Amycus Carrow was oozing with smugness.

Ginny was _not_ going to participate.

"Mister Longbottom, is that your hand raised?"

Neville, arms painfully straight at his sides, went pale.

"And Mister Finnigan? How nice. Come up, boys." Carrow snarled when neither moved, " _come up_."

 _What a fool!_ Choosing two people quite capable of handling themselves. They should have learned as much about Seamus by now. Ginny didn't need to worry. She didn't need to watch, and at first she didn't. She stared at the checkered patterned tiles, a dark purple stone alternating with white marble, under her plain black shoes and considered again the incantations for the map.

A Carrow had attached themselves to each Seamus and Neville.

"How would you proceed, Longbottom, if you had to incapacitate Mister Finnigan?"

Neville must have shrugged.

"He doesn't know! Can you even pretend to think, or is that beyond a son with parents like yours...?"

Ginny winced and she heard Seamus shout, "he would use _Expelliarmus_. Right, Nev?"

"You are out of turn, Mister Finnigan," Alecto Carrow harped. "Professor Carrow, why don't you make a suggestion for Mister Longbottom, seeing as he is so incompetent."

She didn't see the spell cast and she didn't know what it was that Amycus Carrow had said, but she heard Seamus begin to shuffle and then panic. There was a collective step back from the platform as Seamus yelped, peppering, " _get them off!_ " with a string of curses.

Ginny peaked, squinting half-heartedly at the surge of large, hairy spiders escaping from Seamus's shirt and trousers. She wrinkled her nose, because, sure, uncomfortable, but not immediately lethal...

Seamus had forgotten his wand in the wake of arachnids, and so she admitted it was a fair technique for duelling.

The spiders started to slow in their movements and then fell harmlessly to the floor, and it seemed Luna, stuck in the crowd across from Ginny and closer to Seamus, had remembered hers. She lowered her hand from her mouth and played innocent while Seamus finished shaking out his clothing.

" _Who did that?_ " The sister Carrow pushed Seamus aside and brandished her wand over the heads of the students below where she crouched on the platform. Her arm waved over Luna's head and a few in the crowd around her visibly shifted away. "Miss Lovegood, was it? Then please, take Mister Finnigan's place if you are so eager."

Students parted for Seamus as he rejoined them on the floor and found a place next to Ginny, who didn't immediately notice him. She had forgotten the map and any hopes of ignoring the duels. She had her hand on her wand and her eyes on Alecto as Luna very calmly took the steps up the platform.

Luna reached her mark on the stage and no sooner had she stopped, Amycus lifted Neville's arm, which jerked reluctantly at the prying, and sent another of the spider-summoning spells at her.

Some students could only gasp in reaction at the foul move, but Luna eased her weight from one foot to another and angled her shoulders so that the spell hit the loose sleeve of her robe. As the spiders reappeared, she shrugged the robe off and dropped it by her feet, where they continued to fountain up and outward, but she enchanted them to sleep as well.

Amycus dropped the show of making Neville duel, pushing past him, and sent another hex at Luna. From the end of his wand shot out an iron chain.

Its intention was to bind her, Ginny guessed, but Luna pointed to a spot a few paces in front of her and with a quick word, the chain snapped from its arc through the air to the floor of the platform. The sound was loud and rattled with the collision of links.

Luna had reacted smoothly, and still looked a bit bored in her typical, dreamy fashion, but Ginny saw a tense line in her straightened shoulders.

Amycus opened and closed his mouth, clearly out of a play after his spell had failed. He turned from Luna to snap at Neville, " _well!_ Retaliate, Longbottom! Don't just stand there with that stupid expression."

Feeling more confident with Luna sharing the platform, Neville's demeanour changed. They had been partners at the D.A. by the end of last term, having developed a good sort of chemistry in fake duels. Between the two of them, a silent conversation seemed to happen, unbeknownst to either Carrow.

At the reiterated provocation from Amycus, Neville sent a slow-moving spell at Luna, one that Ginny recognised would have set her into a fit of giggles, and Luna cheerfully pivoted to let the magic sail by her and right into Alecto Carrow.

It could not have been practiced to have gone any better.

Ginny's face cracked into a grin as other students laughed at the Carrows' expense, one chortling herself to tears and the other stumbling over performing a counter-spell. Amycus sent a frantic look over his shoulder to the other professors, picture of pathetic as his movements subconsciously seemed to implore someone more capable to help him.

"That's – that's _enough!_ Silence! Silence, all of you! You two, off the platform!" He bellowed, his face going red with the effort. He finally calmed his sister and dramatically returned to his end of the stage. Snapping with spittle, he chose another pair of students to duel, but his anger didn't deter the giddiness that had seized the students.

No matter the ages or the houses of the students he picked, there seemed to be a goal amongst the students to create the most harmless of duels. The horrors inflicted included changing school robes to brilliant colours, charming one another to sing or dance, hiccupping or burping jinxes, swarms of bubbles, showers of glitter, transfiguring shoes to fuzzy slippers.

Eventually, Professors started shouting suggestions from their spot as an audience to what was surely meant to have been a dire show of Death Eater might.

Flitwick requested ballads and McGonagall critiqued transfigurations.

"I've taught you how to make more impressive slippers than that, Miss Forsyth!"

When the Carrows picked on Michael Corner, Ginny perked up and decided, she _would_ participate. Michael would do well to share his melodic singing voice with others.

She hopped onto the stage without an invitation, and raising her eyebrows at Alecto Carrow, she waited for the woman to challenge her, but the refusal never came. And while she had enjoyed Neville's Giggling Charm take the toad down a bit, Ginny decided she was going to let the heat of her duel rest on the man who had used the Cruciatus Curse on her.

Tossing her robe to Neville, she shook her shoulders loose. Ginny teased, allowing her voice to carry, "I would like a _proper_ duel, Mister Corner."

Maybe she would send a Bat-Bogey Hex a little wide, _accidentally_ in the direction of the Carrow hovering to Michael's left. And maybe accidentally follow that up with a jelly-leg hex so that he couldn't escape the assaulting bogeys.

The image made her smile.

Around her, the happy chatter of students quieted and Ginny's expression dropped as Snape walked onto the platform.

He might have descended there to the platform like a black drip from a dreary cave's ceiling. He was swathed in a rich fold of black and green fabric, slick from head to toe with a disquieting sense of ease. And tangible anticipation.

He joined Michael and Amycus Carrow with a quiet stalking, turned to the boy and hissed, " _shoo_."

Michael booked it and Ginny panned her ex-boyfriend with a thumbs down and raspberry as he sheepishly disappeared into the crowd.

It was her own display of bravado, she realised, because she didn't particularly _like_ that she was now facing two men who had each tried, and one having done so successfully, to torture her.

She was slow to give Snape any attention when he said her name, and acted a little bothered by his presence.

"Yes, Professor," Ginny said, maintaining the carefree attitude she had brought with her to the stage. She was cool. Very cool. Unfettered. So much of the battle was _image_. And also - he was not going to spoil the fleeting moment of fun she had tried to enjoy.

"You said you wanted a _proper duel_." Snape smiled, perhaps forever spoiling for Ginny the expression, and waited for her to nod.

She accepted the proposal.

"Professor Snape!" McGonagall was down from the stands as well, halfway up the steps to join them.

"Do _not_ interrupt, Professor McGonagall, when another professor is teaching his students," Snape said, words sharp and cutting in the crowded and silent room.

Snape didn't look back at McGonagall, but his words made her stop mid-step. She glanced at Ginny, then to Snape, and then lowered her foot from the platform and retreated, unhurried, down the steps. She was calm and gave Ginny a curt nod, but didn't offer anything else of support or subtle guidance in her body language.

Ginny would have liked for her to point at Snape and then mime an enthusiastic thumbs-down, but alas her professor resisted the indulgence.

Raising his wand to his face, squaring his body off, Snape told Ginny to do the same. "This is a duel, Miss Weasley, try and imagine some semblance of decorum and face your opponent with dignity."

"I must imagine my opponent is deserving of dignity. Gotcha, Professor."

At the line that formed in his brow and the tightening at the corners of his mouth, she smirked.

She remembered on their first night back to the castle, after she had complained about her family not warning her about Snape being the headmaster, she had turned to Neville and asked him, "and what's that guy got against me? I mean, _me_ , Nev. He doesn't like _me."_

And Neville had lifted a shoulder. "Gin, I'm pretty sure the guy hates everybody."

Neville had suffered more humiliation than was ever appropriate for a student under the care of a teacher.

She had agreed with him, "he's made your life hell for six years now, huh."

Neville was used to the fact and his flippant nodding had disturbed her.

Ginny had sat and chewed on her gripes with Snape more, and shared after a long moment, "but he said this shite about me like I'm some sort of trollop or something. It was personal, swear it."

"He probably resents you because you're with Harry."

"Most of the school is with Harry –" she had said, and then catching on, "what? As in, he resents me for being Harry Potter's girlfriend?"

Neville's answer had been another eloquent shrug. "It took me a few years, but I finally caught on to the fact the guy is jealous of Harry. Something like that. He really likes to lay in about Harry being spoiled and all that."

"Uh-huh."

"Although I never heard about him giving Cho Chang any trouble."

"Aye, but who would? Have you seen her? She's lovely."

"He's jealous because you've got more game than him?" Had been Neville's next suggestion, and Ginny had taken that to be a very probable reason.

"I get all the boys he wants," she had said. "He's just an old man."

"Old and undesirable."

"Time to put him out to pasture."

On the duelling stage, willing her legs not to betray her nervousness, Ginny repeated the phrase to herself, "put him out to pasture."

Severus Snape was a lonely man whose only power came from picking on children in his classroom. He was nothing to fear.

He had killed Dumbledore with that wand, though, hadn't he? The wand he now raised to her – _again_.

Her veins were dry of any liquid luck, and when the duel started, her reactions were born from adrenaline. She was a Chaser – and from all her time flying, she knew how to throw her body around, how to roll from harsh landings, how to dodge and recover. She was small and she was quick – and if the platform were too narrow for a move, then she was fine with dropping to the floor and giving herself more room. She could commit to avoiding the reach of any spell Snape tossed at her.

But she didn't know what to send back. Or how - maybe.

Harry would have known how to answer Snape's spells. It was why he was a better leader of the D.A. than Ginny had any right to dream she might be.

She didn't even understand most of the spells Snape used, but she was pretty certain they were more refined and damaging than a childhood hex she had set upon the twins to get them to stop bothering her. They were at least damaging enough to warrant McGonagall deflecting them from the mass of spectating students.

He sent out a whiplike thread of fire and Ginny didn't think to dodge. She countered it with a gust of wind – spiralling the flames upward and snuffing them out in the vortex.

She watched the fire disperse and barely had time to react to Snape's follow up attack.

Hot water? _No_ , a spray of hot oil that sizzled and hissed when it hit the shield she summoned with _protego._

McGonagall called for the end of the duel, but neither Ginny nor Snape dropped their stances. Ginny sent out a hex that would sprout a nasty line of sores across any part of the body it hit. Snape deflected the spell and returned one that was purple and left a nasty scent trailing in the air after it. Like bad eggs.

She responded with an invisible spell that burst into a flare next to the target's head.

For a moment, she had a window to a win. She had the disarming spell on her tongue when Snape knocked the breath from Ginny's chest with an instantaneous spell. It was like a hook yanking up her lungs threw her throat. She choked and barely kept her knees from folding under her. Her hand shook with the tight grip she had on her wand, but she couldn't form any words for a spell.

Not all spells needed words.

Her earlier hesitance died. Ginny wanted the man to _scream_ and so she snapped her arm down.

A burst of light, putrid, vibrant red struck out from her wand and hit Snape's face. An ugly snapping sound followed and his jaw went slack.

There was a second of silence and then Snape's gargled moaning filled the room.

Fighting for her breath still, Ginny took a moment to understand that his jaw wasn't merely slack, but completely disconnected and held to his face by the stretch of his skin.

When she was more or less able to inhale normally, she managed a short, victorious laugh.

He shut her up with a curse that split open her face.

It wasn't the full strength of the spell but it hit her directly and sent her backwards to the ground. Her eyes burned with the gush of blood and her skin was raw fire, sliced open in a diagonal line from one side of her forehead to her jawline opposite. She was gasping again and voiceless, writhing on the ground and blindly trying to find her wand but her wet fingers were slippery on the platform floor.

It felt like ages before someone was next to her, soothing her and tending to her face.

Ginny eventually became aware of her own croaking voice, demanding both her wand and for Snape to come at her.

"Where is he? _Where is that cunt-smiling bastard?_ " She heard herself almost shouting.

Flitwick was tending to her and he told her Snape wasn't there and not to worry. He tried to wrap bandages over her face, tried to block her eyes, she thought, but Ginny spotted Snape in her stained and blurry vision.

McGonagall had transfigured a metal device to keep his jaw in place temporarily, and the man had the gall to stare Ginny down with pompous arrogance. She saw it in the curve of his eyes as he looked at her.

Her hands left Flitwick to scratch around for her wand once more. When her fingers found the cool promise of its handle, she raised it as high above her as she could manage. She didn't intend to attack Snape, but there were more people around her and they must have assumed as much. They became a solid wall, trying to subdue her.

She squirmed and dry-heaved and she prevailed eventually. Her arm snuck around someone's shoulder, the wand free, and she sent into the air above their heads the image of gleaming green skull, its mouth wide and its eye socket filled with the coiling scales of a snake.

The hall was dark and lit only by the glow of her spell. An eerie dullness settled upon the room, quelling for a moment those trying to hold her down.

Someone screamed at the mimicked presentation of the _Morsmorde_ calling card and the quiet vanished. Fighting against the hands trying to tear the wand from her, Ginny snapped that she wasn't "bloody finished," and sent up a complementary explosion of red sparks.

She lit the _Morsmorde_ on fire.

Red and bloodied as her face, she thought, sneering at the blazing image before someone forcefully knocked her out.

o o o

 **Author's Note:** Check out the new story art, eh! By my amazingly talented friend, DoodleHolic!

So I'm still enjoying putting everyone through a little bit of pain. And, uh, that trend will continue! Oops.

 _Please review!_


	5. The Condemned and The Conspiring

o o o

 _silent knife, unholy knife_

o o o

Ginny shared her room in Number Twelve Grimmauld Place with Hermione, and for most of the summer that had been a fine arrangement.

It was less than ideal since their latest guest's arrival at the house.

She stood outside her bedroom in a dark hallway and considered possible places to sleep that didn't also house her brother, Ron, and a very agitated Harry Potter.

From the other side of the door, Ginny could hear the three of them: Hermione placating, Ron mumbling support, and Harry speaking quickly while he paced the room. He would hit the floorboard at the end of Ginny's bed and turn there, on the squeakiest spot, in his laps.

He was genuinely upset about You-Know-Who, and Ginny sympathized - really, she did - but she was also tired and frustrated. If the three of them couldn't bother to include her, then they should have at least had the decency to do their private conferences in Ron and Harry's room. She wanted her pyjamas and the squishy feather pillow with the soft cotton sheeting and she wanted to sleep.

She also wanted to be involved in their conversation but that wasn't going to happen.

Ginny gave the door a very perturbed look and turned for the staircase. There were lights on in the kitchen and she decided if she couldn't find a bed for the night, company would suffice.

"Hey, Tonks," she greeted the older woman as she dragged her feet into the room.

"Wotcha!" Tonks grinned, her face pink and eyes a little glassy. Eying Ginny's state, she pointed out the obvious. "Sleep evading you?"

"Those three are holed up in my room. Didn't even invite me," Ginny grouched.

Also at the table with Tonks was Sirius Black. Tonks had changed her hair to match his in colour, styled with one side long and the other buzzed, and the two could have been models on a rock album cover. Between them, furthering the rebel image, was the remaining third of a bottle of whiskey and a set of shot glasses.

Ginny took a seat with them and nodded to the alcohol. "Mum'll be after your heads for that."

Sirius didn't often engage Ginny in conversation – they didn't ever have much reason to acknowledge the other in any specific manner – but he perked up at Ginny's warning. Smiling at her, he tapped his nose and winked. "Mum'll have to be awake to know any better."

"Molly's finally worried herself to sleep," Tonks said, shaking her head. "I haven't seen someone drop like that in a long time."

Ginny was surprised. Her mother had been a ball of terrible energy for the entirety of the summer holiday and Ginny had sort of expected her to shun sleep until "the kids" were at least back at school.

"She really needed it," Ginny murmured. Her gaze landed determinedly on the whiskey.

Sirius noticed and set his chair forward from where he had been sitting on its hind legs. Inclining his chin at the bottle, he asked, "interested?"

"No, no, not a good idea –" Tonks slapped away Sirius' sneaking hand. "Sorry, Gin."

Ginny shared Sirius' devastated, open-mouthed stare of utter betrayal. She pointed out, aghast, "Tonks, you're supposed to be the _cool_ one."

"Don't the two of you team up. That's not fair!"

"Shit, what does a kid have to go through these days to earn a little whiskey." Sirius was smiling, but it was a strange face he made. Bitter and disbelieving. "Fer cryin' out, Tonks, she's had just as much madness going on in her head as Harry –"

Ginny nodded, but didn't exactly understand his meaning. It sounded like a good argument.

"Totally mad," she agreed.

Tonks' face went noticeably whiter and her eyes flickered, alarmed, over Ginny and back to Sirius. She said with a thin lip, "that's enough, Sirius."

It took a moment for the warning to land for Sirius. " _Oh!_ Fuck – right. Shite, I meant – I meant –"

Understanding she was missing something important shared between the two, Ginny dropped her playful sadness and frowned. "What? What is it? What are you talking about?"

Because it usually went as such, Ginny thought they were talking about Harry. Another horrible thing had happened and he was worse off than before. Something more than the scar aches, perhaps?

"We're all dealing with the You-Know-Who stuff, innit?" She said. Insisting, "I could use whiskey. I've had it before. Charlie thinks he's good at hiding his stash."

"Right, right," Sirius said. He reached for the bottle and glasses again, tapped one with his wand so that it replicated itself, and handed one of the pair to Tonks and the third to Ginny. Easing his cousin's apprehension, he promised, "she'll just take a sip."

Ginny held up two fingers close together. "Little sip."

"She'll probably not even like it."

"I'll hate it, I promise."

Sirius whispered, quite audibly, "she's weak, now, Ginny. She's three under already."

The two of them, a pair of tricksters, snickered as Tonks dragged a hand down her face and haggardly waved the other one for Sirius to pour a round. She grumbled about how they were _very_ barbaric to strong arm her in such a way.

Ginny asked Sirius, who sat with easy composure, "have you really had three shots?"

He did whisper then, "actually this is her fifth and I've stopped at my first."

"Cruel man."

"I have a reputation to maintain, but hell, I'm not in my twenties any more." He made a very big show of disappointment to hide his actual remorse.

"Stop your conspiring, the lot of you," Tonks said, straightening her posture and becoming determined. Lifting her glass, she solemnly called, "cheers," and drained her shot.

Across from her, Sirius tipped his glass back, his mouth closed, and Ginny watched the whiskey reappear in the bottle. She swirled her own serving and put back the small amount. Only enough to burn her lips and tongue and trickle down her throat in a hot, buzzing line. Ginny kept her features neutral; it really wasn't a taste she _loved_.

Tonks dropped her head to the table, groaning. "I've made so many bad decisions in my life to lead me to this moment."

Sirius breathed out a shallow laugh.

"She'll be alright," he assured Ginny. He held a finger to his mouth and poured another bit of whiskey into her glass. "Life is short."

She didn't drink it right away, and instead slid the glass between her hands while trying to keep the drink from spilling over. She tucked a leg under her and rested her head on the other, raised tight to her chest. Sirius seemed content to sit and listen to Tonks' increasingly less coherent mumblings.

The kitchen was quiet but for the soft sound of snoring by the time Ginny got around to draining her second shot. More tingling at her lips.

She said honestly. "When it's this hot out, the drink makes it worse."

Sirius made a non-committal type of noise. He didn't seem to mind the warmth.

She asked then, because the question had been bugging her, and because she sensed a vulnerability in his front, "why would I be mad?"

They might have been talking about Harry earlier, but Sirius had said _she_ , Ginny Weasley, had just as much madness in her head. Not just everyone was dealing with the resurgence of You-Know-Who, but _her in particular_.

Ginny watched Sirius tense slightly, a stiffness entering his shoulders and jaw. He liked to hold an aura of carefree fun – especially around Harry and her siblings – but he had tells and he hadn't quite remembered how to hide them. His shadowed eyes slid from watching Tonks to meet Ginny's patient, inquisitive stare. He winced at something he saw in her face.

"What?" She wondered, a little wounded by the visceral reaction.

He didn't want to answer her – and he didn't answer her, not really.

"You said I was a cruel man?" The rhetorical statement hung between them, threatening to fall and end their strange, private conversation. Then Sirius sighed and rubbed at his temples. Gravely, "I wouldn't have done that, though."

She pinched her mouth at one corner but let him talk at his own pace.

"Listen, Ginny, I'm all for keeping the whole of you informed. I've seen what happens when information is withheld from the right people. I know that," he told her, his tone apologetic. Abstractly, "I don't like it. I don't."

Shaking her head in confusion, she admitted she still didn't understand.

Sirius pushed his chair back, fidgeting, then pulled it again to the table to lean over to her. "They would prefer not to talk about what happened, Ginny. They would prefer it didn't happen at all."

His closeness was unnerving, and his rambling meaningless to her, but Ginny felt a thrumming of excitement up and down her chest. She chewed her numb lip and waited with a trapped breath for him to say something more.

"What happened?" She asked after Sirius considered her for too long a moment. His eyes, she noticed, like most men, went between her lips and her hair. He didn't glance any higher.

But her voice roused him from his thoughts and Sirius retreated to his seat, went back to balancing on its legs. Looking away, all he he said was, "we've all seen it, Ginny."

She liked how he said her name, like he _meant_ it. He said it like she wasn't a simple child fumbling around adults. But he also said it in a way that recognised a weariness in her she didn't see herself.

Ginny watched his gaze become too distant for the tiny kitchen of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place.

"We've all been there," Sirius said. "We've all seen the darkness. You're not alone."

He might have been attempting to reassure her, but Ginny felt a hollow ache in her middle at his words.

o o o

Chapter Five

The Condemned and The Conspiring

o o o

Inside the Hospital Wing there was a heated discussion about what to do with the "Problem" within the school.

Professors Flitwick, Sprout, and McGonagall were hovering a few paces from Ginny's cot, their words rapid, jumping in pitch, and occasionally too loud for their attempt to maintain hushed voices.

It had been an uneasy effort, but something in their tone and urgency had dragged her from a manufactured slumber, and Ginny yanked herself back to wakefulness every few seconds. Her right eye was uncovered and she watched the blue and grey ceiling above her while she listened.

"The students are meant to be _safe_ , Minerva!"

"Would you rather we send them to their homes and condemn them there to capture and torture?"

"We should have made certain _all_ students came back to the school if we _had_ any intention to offer them protection – "

"If you remember, none of us were informed of that 'restriction' until the train arrived."

Ginny's vision darkened, and she jerked her head to fight unconsciousness. It was an uncomfortable struggle and she tried not to let the urge to be sick overtake her as well. Her head pounded. The aching pain leaving the wound across her face was a constant stream of waves rocking down her body. Her eyes burned, eyelids feeling thick and crusted as she blinked, and she realised she must have been crying in her sleep.

But as sorry as she felt about herself – _so pathetic_ – hearing the apprehension and frustration from her professors disturbed her more.

"Do the students stay?" Flitwick asked, his soft words were a heavy question filling the room. And then, more quietly, "it has been only _one week_ since term began. _He_ _is out of control_ , Minerva. Half her face was left to be scraped from the stage..."

Flitwick wasn't finished speaking, she didn't think, but it was then that Ginny lost the battle for her stomach and pitched over the side of her bed, heaving. Immediately, her professors were at her side, one having gone to call for Madame Pomfrey, and having their attention, she tried to speak around her retching.

"Don't – don't close the school –"

If they closed the school and sent the students home, then how would she ever have a chance to fight back?

Her parents would lock her up rather than risk her getting involved in the war.

Her professors had to see that, surely.

Ginny couldn't be idle. Not anymore.

She still remembered the muggle family at the World Cup summers ago. She watched the masked mob beneath them toss and contort their listless, powerless bodies and she had fled. She had run from the Death Eaters in the Department of Mysteries, and had danced around hexes and curses at the end of last term. She had stood by while her home burned. She could still smell the fire from The Burrow, feel its heat on her face, on her lips.

Or maybe the burning on her lips was from stomach bile?

"I need to be here, Professor," Ginny said. She was on her back again, having finished being sick, and Professor McGonagall was hovering at her side as someone pushed a potion to her mouth. Someone said something about her having a bad reaction to her medicine. "Don't close the school."

She couldn't go home and be smothered again.

She couldn't surrender to being numb and silenced, placed in the waiting dark.

She had to act. She had to fight.

She had to, _she_ _had to, she had to, she had to –_

When Ginny next awoke, she was alone in the wing and half a day had passed.

Madame Pomfrey replaced the bandages on her face and told her to "focus on healing." The curse Snape had used on her required regular topical applications to keep the tissue from going bad, and she was orderer to stay in her bed as the rest of her body was not very happy with the medicine. Moving very much tended to make her lose her stomach.

The thought that at least the school was remaining open as yet comforted her, but only for so long. On her third morning in the wing, she came to the conclusion that she was probably going to die there. _From boredom_.

But at least she had transitioned to smaller bandages and then, finally, in the middle of the second week of term, she was able to go without any wrappings at all.

Madame Pomfrey handed Ginny a mirror after she had removed the bandages. She warned her that the injury was not fully healed, that there was redness, swelling, and bruising that would go away with time. After a gentle pat at her shoulder, she left Ginny alone to examine the progress.

Seeing her face again was…something.

Ginny had about a thousand scars – she had often bragged of them – and she was absolutely _not_ about to make a fuss over her new one. Her brother and Katie Bell would never have cried over something so trivial. Skin was simply clothing for her bones and the rest of her organs.

What was one line of fresh thread stitched across her face?

She traced the puffy edge of scar tissue that ran from her hairline above her left eye down to its culmination at her right jawline. A fraction lower and Snape's curse would have taken her eye – popped it open like a split grape in its socket.

One more scar was fine.

Later in the afternoon, she was tracing doodles in the air above her with her wand, telling herself she was beyond any more weak feelings. Footsteps, steady and heavy, approached her bed, and Ginny had just enough time to erase her angry caricature of the Carrows being dangled over a herd of hungry Blast-Ended Skrewts before her privacy curtains were yanked back.

It had taken her face getting sliced open and a spot of medical observation, but at least she had finally learned Adrian Pucey's purpose at Hogwarts. He was "helping" Madame Pomfrey with medical care, but Ginny suspected he had been placed in the Hospital Wing as a spy.

The former Slytherin Quidditch Team member greeted her with a blank, unimpressed face. He said, "you have a visitor."

Ginny sat up from her dismal slouching and tentatively tried for a beaming smile – _still too sore, nope –_ but her only visitors had been her professors on that first night. She said hopefully, "Luna?"

It wasn't.

"You're welcome, it's me."

"Noooo _…_ " Ginny dragged the syllable out long enough for Pansy Parkinson to roll her eyes.

"Thank you, Adrian. You can go," Pansy said to Pucey. She perched on a neighbouring cot and smirked. She very obviously lingered her eyes over Ginny's face, following the new line that divided it. "Well, I came to confirm the rumours you were dead and the person being stowed away in here was actually a dog in a red wig. _…_ But you have the face of a dog now, so that much is true."

Boredom and the treatments must have been messing with Ginny's head, because she was actually – _almost_ – happy to see the other girl. Madame Pomfrey was too patient to engage in Ginny's banter and Pucey was a brick wall for talking.

"Uh-huh. You're saying I had a pretty face before this happened?" Ginny asked, immediately excited for the chance to volley snark.

"I might be saying the face of a dog is an improvement to a rat."

"You would know, being a rat yourself."

"If I'm a rat, that would make you a worm."

"A worm? Bettering the world around it by its mere existence? That _does_ sound like me."

Pansy's nose scrunched and she seemed to be fighting her lips from making an expression. She turned her face away and exhaled harshly – a sound suspiciously like amusement covered by a little cough. She failed to put together a stinging reply and shook her head, asking, "how do you flip a comparison to a _worm_ into a _compliment_ with such a straight face, Weasley?"

" _Haaa_ ," Ginny sang in an awful key, a dimpling in her left cheek. "That's your comeback? You going soft, Parkinson?"

"Don't hold your breath." Pansy reached into a pocket in the folds of her skirt and tossed Ginny a small parcel. "Your locust friends aren't allowed to visit you, so I brought this for them."

Snatching the paper-wrapped bundle from its arc, Ginny narrowed her eyes. "I'm not allowed _any_ visitors. How'd you even pull this off?"

"Adrian is a dear friend."

"So you _are_ going soft."

Before the thought could be entertained for very long, Pansy sniffed. "As if. I made Longbottom give me his toad for this favour."

" _What?_ He couldn't have – you didn't." Ginny dropped her mouth open, which hurt, but not enough to dampen her surprise.

Pansy hummed in assertion. Hopping to her feet again and pressing at the creases in her robes, she announced, "I'm going to feed that fat little dumpling to my cat."

Ginny was aghast. She said again, " _noooo_ _…_ "

Pansy played at being cruelly delighted for a moment, and then a nervous tapping of her foot travelled up her leg to her head. Her long blonde curls bounced as she shivered with revulsion. The taunting died and she relented, " _eugh_ , no, I'm not. That's _disgusting._ It would probably give Sir Breunor warts."

Good news.

"Don't hurt Trevor, though," Ginny said, sounding a bit petulant rather than threatening.

"I'm not going to hurt a _toad_. I'm not that pathetic," Pansy said. And then, "it's only that I like seeing Longbottom cry."

"So _…_ still rather pathetic."

Pansy clicked her tongue. "Enjoy your stack of homework or whatever it is they've sent you."

"Oh, you haven't opened it to snoop? Soft – you're so soft, Parkinson."

The joke didn't land and it seemed their volleying was over.

"I couldn't care less to get involved in your death walk, Weasley. Whatever it is you and all your little peons think you're up to…"

"Not up to anything –" but her denial was ignored.

Pansy held Ginny's gaze. She was bare in her disbelief and wariness. "Don't you realise? You're getting your name higher up on a list you really do _not_ want to be on."

That was her farewell, and Pansy spun on her toes and left the Hospital Wing.

Ginny lifted a shoulder, alone again, in an act of cavalierness that no one could appreciate. What list did Pansy mean? The list of people Death Eaters found the most hostile? If so, then the higher Ginny's name was, the better.

She opened the package Pansy had delivered and was disappointed to find textbooks and assignments. Picking through everything, she scanned Luna's florid writing for a hidden message, and her miserable slouching returned when she deciphered a short status update on the map: no further progress on identifying people. There was no mention about the Room of Requirement.

A sensible thing, probably. They would do much better getting to the Room with the map.

But had they at least been tackling possible spells to perform once they did get to the Room?

What about creating a model to mimic the Room and its place in the castle? If they could solve it on a smaller scale, then it would be easier and faster once they were at the Room itself. Ginny had no way of conveying this to Neville and Luna, however, and so she tried to do as much on her own.

On her bed, she transfigured two of her books into boxes. One box acted as the seventh floor hallway and the other as the Room, which while flexible in its structure, always had a single point of anchoring contact with the hallway. After the doorway had been blasted open, the Room had been locked into one state. When occupied, it was also locked into one state.

Perhaps to fix the Room they only had to stabilise its door.

Ginny tried to establish the scenario with the boxes. Transfiguration spells for the shapeshifting of the "Room" and a charm that linked the two spaces, with a specific interaction triggered by her wand in the "hallway" to change the configuration of the "Room."

The setup was more difficult than she wanted and she spent hours merely getting the boxes to behave how she intended, let alone sabotaging and then restoring them.

At some point, Pucey came back with her evening meal and she put aside her tinkering to eat.

It was soup. Again. Miserable and pouting, Ginny twirled her spoon in the warm broth and then ladled some up only to tip it back into the bowl. Easy to eat but not nearly so enticing as the meal she was certain the other students would be enjoying in the Great Hall while she was trapped in the Hospital Wing. They all had company, at least, and they would be enjoying pears and cured meats and that soft cheese that cut like warm butter.

But it was still not as good as the food her family grew and prepared at The Burrow…

Ginny froze. An idea had seized her, sudden and brilliant, and she smiled. Forget trying to recreate and fix the Room of Requirement – and screw being stuck in the Hospital Wing – she had a new approach to their predicament to pursue. One that was much more suited to her talents.

-o-

The Death Eaters were infesting Hogwarts and had infiltrated the faculty and position as headmaster, but the ultimate goal remained to keep the castle from falling completely to You-Know-Who. If the self-styled Dark Lord were to walk into the Great Hall tomorrow morning, then he would be met with resistance. There were plenty within the faculty and student body who would fight and Ginny had the goal to make sure the right side would win.

She needed a route for supplies and communication that would not be intercepted by the Carrows and Snape. The Room of Requirement was the likely answer and the most secure option.

Having a Plan B wasn't bad, though.

It was an hour before sunrise when she slid from her bed, stuffed a blanket under the sheets. and transfigured a pillow to look like a ruffled head of long, red hair. She charmed the mane to snore every few minutes and decided the decoy was convincing enough.

Sneaking in the castle was best accomplished with a Muffling Spell on the bottom of one's shoes and a Concealment Charm on one's robes. Another charm for her eyes to adjust as best as possible in the dark. Hallways were blocked off into segments, with ideal points for concealment every few paces. Shadows were an issue, as was any lingering scent that Mrs. Norris might notice. Obfuscation was best for scents: something strong and that fit the environment, like a cleaning agent that matched the one used by the House Elves on the castle floors.

Every night of sneaking out to steal a broomstick from The Burrow's shed had taught Ginny the best methods for getting around undetected. The thrill was just as strong as a Sixth Year as it had been for a six year old.

It was a literal pain to grin, but Ginny couldn't stop herself as she pressed her body to the back of a suit of armour and waited, breath held in her chest, as Filch ambled past her in the Entry Hall. She kept her eyes on the Founders Portrait and didn't dare move a muscle until he had been gone a good minute or two.

She had half an hour to do reconnaissance and get back to her bed before she was due for another round of topical treatments.

Time enough.

Down in the dungeons, Ginny stopped at a familiar painting of fruit. Holding the frame, she tickled the pear and eased the door to the passageway open. She flinched when the hinges squeaked, prepared to dash, but didn't when nothing went amiss. Inside, the kitchens for the castle were quiet and empty.

She was careful as she let herself in.

The facility providing food for Hogwarts was large – it had to be – and it was thinking about the homegrown food of The Burrow that had got her then thinking about the logistics of providing meals for hundreds of students. As powerful as House Elves could be in how they circumvented magical rules imposed on the grounds, Ginny knew they were unable to create food from nothing. The raw materials had to get into the castle somehow.

The large stone ovens, as tall as she was and lining an entire wall of the kitchens, gave her validation.

Snape and the Carrows and any other Death Eater would be keeping an eye on the floo network usage in the school, but the deliveries to the kitchens would have to be expected and accounted for already. Nothing suspicious, simply a necessary and regular part of operations.

And Ginny was going to use that to her advantage.

The kitchens had an attached living quarters for the House Elves and Ginny made her way to the door. If she could find either Dubby or Blinky, the only two elves she knew to some extent, then she would be able to secure a chance for her to use the floo.

She knocked out of courtesy and waited for a response. None came. She was opening the door when the flames in each of the fireplaces ignited. Set on a schedule she guessed, but it was an innate sense that made her hurry back to the kitchens' entrance.

Through the opening and shutting the painting back in place, she kept the door just enough ajar to spy. She could barely see the end of one the fireplaces, but the kitchens were glowing green as someone used the floo. A tall shadow went across the far wall and Ginny watched as a witch, and then another, and then more and more people came into the kitchens.

The sound of a work place coming to life filled the room and she quietly shut the door before anyone caught onto her presence.

It took her a moment to piece together that the House Elves had been replaced with a new staff.

She had a thought as to who had made that decision and to whom, ultimately, the new hires reported.

There wouldn't be any help from the kitchens, but she told herself the route wasn't completely void. The option was simply...a little less ideal.

She made her way out of the dungeons feeling hopeless and adamantly trying to ignore as much. The Entry Hall seemed so much less thrilling than it had a moment ago.

What was the saying? A door shut only meant a window opened. Something like that. Eventually she would figure out how to get to Hogsmeade.

In the hallway that led to the door of the Hospital Wing at the far end, Ginny realized she was distracted and careless in her return trip as she didn't immediately see the two figures lurking by the door. She had been staring at their shapes and not processing the Carrows at all until she heard their muffled voices. She snapped against the wall like a bent branch going back to place.

With a whisper, she reset her spell for camouflage and flattened herself to the stones. She was between torches and lanterns, in enough shadows, and between her and the Carrows were windows, curtains, statues, a number of things to serve as proper coverage; she felt comfortable staying in place to listen in to their conversation.

They were huddled together and arguing.

"What do…you're going…?" Said the sister to her brother, but most of her words were lost or indiscernible.

From the brother, Ginny clearly heard the word, " _pay_."

Another innate sense in her gut told Ginny they were talking about her and that one was looking for revenge. The effort to discredit the pair had been a school wide affair, but Ginny made a nice proxy.

"We could…he would be willing…to avoid…" from Alecto again.

Curious, Ginny peered around a marble carving and watched them. An unwise decision.

Her heart seized as someone very near her cleared their throat. The cut across her face bloomed in a renewed searing of pain as she looked into the cool, beady eyes of Severus Snape.

Every muscle in her body tensed and Ginny thought for certain Snape was going to slice her open again. Slowly. Permanently.

He was like a wraith in the hall, warping the light around him and he could have been Death come to collect her.

Snape hadn't turned to fully face her and his hands were empty and at his sides. Speechless and unable to move, Ginny waited for a hex or a curse – for the inevitable boiling of his temper. His eyes on hers, he minutely shook his head and moved his gaze back to the Carrows. Subtly setting his shoulders, he strode down the hallway towards them.

"Masters of your own actions yet again? Are we?" His voice was commanding as he approached the siblings.

But Ginny couldn't focus on Snape's reprimand.

The Carrows started like scolded children and didn't have the ability between the two of them to form a coherent response.

"This _impudent_ , treacherous child needs to learn her place, Severus!"

"She needs to _learn_!"

Ginny waited for Snape to rat her out. 'The girl in question is not ten metres from you – hiding right there!'

Strangely, he said something different. Her stomach turned nonetheless.

"Weasley is none of your concern. I will be the one to do any honours."

The male Carrow was most offended. "Are you calling a dibs on her?"

"Only to keep you blundering idiots from making anything more of a martyr out of her." A short pause, long enough for the siblings to exchange a questioning glance, and then, "make yourselves scarce. _Now._ "

Ginny was still as the Carrows scuttled by her, grumbling to themselves, and left the hallway. In the light of predawn, from the warmth of the castle torches, she was more visible than was really safe, but they were too busy being disgruntled to notice her.

She heard the toad say, "that weasel's not going to last the month!"

The promise was still looping in her mind when Snape's shadow loomed over her again and it was only the two of them in the hallway.

Ginny forgot her panic and worry and asked, honestly curious, "why'd you help me?"

Because he had! Snape had just _helped her!_

It was hard to fathom.

"Next time you feel the urge to wander the castle, Miss Weasley, _don't._ "

Snape grabbed her arm and pulled her to the Hospital Wing.

"Why?" She asked again, not bothering to fight his lead. He hadn't done it to help her, not really. He must have miscalculated. "Are you really so scared of me becoming some sort of martyr?"

Because if that were the case, then he shouldn't have been so quick to cut her face. Whether he wanted it or not – something like that was ripe for creating symbols. ...Especially when Ginny herself was fine with using whatever means necessary to galvanize a resistance.

Snape pushed her through the door and marched her down to her bed. He was stoic and so she repeated "why?"

There was no conceivable reason for him to not allow them to do anything to her. She had already suffered a _crucio._ What worse could they do?

"Were you scared they were going to do a better job of making a warning out of me or something?" And as nothing else she tried elicited a response, she sneered, "maybe they're showing you up to dear Voldemort?"

Snape had scared her in the past. He had been a clear figure of danger.

Ginny, at times, however, lacked sense for self-preservation.

There was a new intensity to Snape when he heard her casually toss out the name Voldemort.

She yelped as the grip around her arm was joined with a yanking hold at the back of her neck, craning her head back with a tangle of her hair.

" _Do_ not _speak His name_ ," he hissed at her with a venomous anger.

And for all the beats her heart had skipped since Snape had spotted her in the hallway, it seemed to be beating painfully fast against her ribs as he held her.

He was cold and hot with anger and staring at her with a deep, simmering hatred. Every part of her shook with fear and fight but he seemed to be inflexible stone as his studied her.

"You _stupid child_ ," Snape finally said. And he shoved her into her bed. Holding a hand and finger to her, "do not try me again, Miss Weasley. I have only so much patience for your foolishness."

He left without another word and the only sound she heard for a long while was her storming pulse.

-o-

 **Author's Note:** Please review!


End file.
